July 16, 2008

On a routine check stop at an army post in Iraq something went terribly wrong. There was a drive by shooting and the army was forced to take action. In the following of the terrorist, our young group of Army operatives many of them are shot and killed. After some quick thinking and forceful tactics by the group leader Brandon King, all foes were defeated and as you later find out innocent people as well. All of this has happened only a couple of days before all of them were to go home.

With the thoughts of loosing close friends and dealing with what happened, four close friends must now deal with while living out their everyday lives. You quickly find out that this is not an easy task, even more so when adding alcohol to the equation. Each friend deals with the so called pressures of life differently. Some drown themselves in alcohol and watch their lives spin out of control. Others just struggle to keep their personal lives and army lives separate and merge the two in an unsafe manner. While some don’t have time to think about either because they are taking care of the others and try to help stop the bleeding.

Throughout all of this you still don’t waver from the main characters, Brandon King, story. This movie is based on how he deals with all of his friends’ lives falling apart around him and his unfortunate re-entering into the army due to Stop Loss. While serving his time in the army you couldn’t find a calmer, cooler, or collective soldier out there. But now facing reinstatement into the army after finishing his time, Brandon seems to turn into a whole new person and looses it and becomes a renegade in search of finding a way out of this mess of being demoted, facing his fears in correcting past mistakes, and being betrayed by the ones closest to him and getting on with his life.

Filmmaking: 9
The cast for the film was put together wonderfully. Ryan Phillippe led a wonderful cast that had some amazing chemistry. Everyone delivered wonderful and believable lines that just brought you even further into each of their stories and made you feel like you were right there with them.

The only problem I had with this film which was a really cool concept was how they told some of the stories. When something happened that was devastating Director Kimberly Peirce shot the film in a documentary mode with some of the shots that one of the army group members had shot during everyone’s tour in Iraq. It flowed really well was in interesting concept but for the average viewer might bother them.

Visuals: 7
As I stated earlier, this film takes a bold look on filming with its half documentary half live shots. You could tell what type of situation you were in based on what type of shot was being shot. When you were in Iraq the shot was a faded color and was shaky. While you were everywhere else you had a clean shoot. The film was a little grainy with the upconverting. It wasn’t extremely crisp but looked better than average compared to other dvds I have seen.

Sound: 6
When I came to what the characters were saying that was all you could hear. This is sometimes a nice thing but sometimes it doesn’t make you feel like you are actually in the environment that the actors are in. For one example, they are in a southern barn dance and you know that the music will be loud and you have to talk really loud for anyone to hear you. Well when the actors talked sometimes the music seemed to disappear once in a while.

When it came to the sounds in Iraq, which is a much different story. You heard every explosion, order being yelled, and gun shot. You felt like you were there and the bullets were whipping by your ear. You could sense what everyone felt during each shot. This was the best part of the film when you incorporate every aspect.

Value: 7
Just like every other film out there you have commentary for the film. What diminishes this is that it is only done by the director. There are eleven deleted scenes that you can watch and you can see why they were not in the film. You also can see a little more behind the scenes in the making of the film. The coolest extra is watching the actors go through boot camp and getting punished for being late and doing push-ups for errors they do and anything else dealing with joining the army.

Overall: 5.7
Yes, every category scored way higher than the overall score, but there was just a enjoyment factor that was missing. The acting was way better than your average movie. The sound made you feel like you were in the action in Iraq and kept you right there at the edge of your seat. There are not a lot of extras but what you have enlightens you and makes you get into this movie a little more. One paper this movie is almost flawless but something just makes you crave something more by the end. This is a rental movie in my mind and nothing more.