It is a generally worthy effort, whose real strengths deserve recognition. Its limitations too, however, which express ongoing problems, merit thinking about.

| Mar 5, 2021

A reminder of the tremendous and heartbreaking humanity behind the war in Iraq.

| Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 24, 2020

Peirce's accomplished filmmaking and fine performances overcome the predictability of a narrative asserting that occasionally the war at home can be as tough as the battlefield.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 4, 2018

Stop-Loss-the first feature directed by Kimberly Peirce since Boys Don't Cry (1999)-is the best of the bunch. It's aims to be a Coming Home for our time, and it's the first film about the Iraq war that attempts to be entertaining.

| Nov 30, 2017

Mature, violent war drama tackles heavy issues.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 17, 2010

Feverish yet bizarrely apolitical, the movie tries to have it both ways and fumbles its outraged and reconciliatory impulses equally

| Aug 27, 2009

Peirce's sincerity and smarts cannot quite defuse the overall didactic nature of the piece.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 29, 2009

Following the harrowing and superbly made opening sequences of hand to hand combat in Iraq, we can feel the frustrations and the anger through the film, and we sympathise. But the film has a confused message ...

| Aug 4, 2008

Stop-Loss is a tough film to watch and one that raises issues of concern that travel far beyond the war-torn regions. But whether its message is accurately targeted is for the viewer to decide

| Aug 4, 2008

...once it makes its point, it tends to pile on, never making an entirely convincing drama nor an entirely convincing argument.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 2, 2008

The film gets pretty heavy handed in the last third and is weighed down by an inadequate performance.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 18, 2008

The reason "Stop Loss" works, unlike its 2007 predecessors, is that it cares more about its characters than it does about making a political point.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 11, 2008

[Peirce's] film looks at the fallout of war in lives lost and lives ruined, pain that has a trickle-up effect on our nation's image of itself.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 5, 2008

It strokes every personal ideal, whatever it is, rather than aligning itself with its characters and letting the conclusions arise out of who they are.

| Jun 3, 2008

Though it is very message oriented and a little sloppy at times, I found the subject to be really interesting and the opening war scene will blow you away.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 24, 2008

The war in Iraq has itself become the realization of the shameful "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (it's not just gays and lesbians that are being told to look the other way). Stop-Loss reveals just one ugly aspect of such insidiousness.

| May 22, 2008

An honest vocalization of the inchoate discomfort so many Americans on either side of the political divide are feeling.

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 15, 2008

But whatever you think about the Iraq war and the people who are fighting in it, you'll be shaken up and moved by Stop-Loss.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 1, 2008

Distancing Stop-Loss from other Iraq films by highlighting an American military tactic that has been little talked about, Peirce has crafted a credible but hardly outstanding effort that may disappoint those expecting another Boys Don't Cry.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 25, 2008

Stop Loss takes some time out from the argument over the validity of the war to ask a question closer to home - whether the emotional battlefield America subjects its young soldiers to is actually worth it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 25, 2008