More Hollywood Lies: Stop-Loss Hits Theaters, Flops

Have you ever heard or seen something that sped up your heartrate and gave you that fight-or-flight adrenaline rush just because it was such a blatant and poisonous lie? It enraged you because even though you knew it was clearly a lie, other people right around you didn't know better and probably ate it up? That's how I felt two months ago when I sat in a Manhattan movie theater packed with left-wing yuppies and the preview for Stop-Loss, which opened this weekend, flickered on the screen.

The premise of the movie is this: Army war hero and small-town everyman (Ryan Phillipe) returns triumphantly from Iraq at the end of his enlistment ready to settle down and pursue the American dream with his equally blonde high school sweetheart (typecast Hollywood protagonists always have two things in common: blonde hair and democrat voting records). But wait a second there, heroic young American. Bush and his blood-and-oil-thirsty gang of neo-con fascist Republicans have other plans -- you've been stop-lossed! Oh, snap!

Mr. big biceps tough boy gets orders to return to the hopeless quagmire of Iraq, which sets us up for our hero's obviously noble inner conflict--to desert in a time of war or not to desert in a time of war?

Ugh. Everything about this movie is disgusting. Let's break down why a movie with this theme failed hopelessly at the box office.

First, it's premised on a very dangerous and intentionally deceptive lie. The producers of this movie want you to believe that every day courageous, young soldiers like Phillipe's character are doing their duty for a government that betrays them by villainously breaking their enlistment contracts through utilization of stop-loss orders (Phillipe's character indignantly complains "I honored my contract and I expect the Army to do the same!") This is demonstrably false.

For example, when I personally enlisted in the Army, my contractual obligation, as very plainly and clearly presented to me, was four years active duty in addition to four years in the Individual Ready Reserve. This means I owe the Army a minimum of four years and they are entitled to extend me an additional four. If they did so, it would be well within the bounds of the agreement that was entered into. This is the standard. Now, obviously the inability of this movie's hero to understand his enlistment contract is to be laid at President Bush's feet, right? Hmmm...

The second reason movies like this fail is that it asks a question and explores an issue that no respectable American relates to: desertion in a time of war. No amount of equivocation or emotional Hollywood bullshit can make a deserter seem noble or just. To regular people, this is just a no-brainer. Desertion is a bad thing.

Well now Hollywood, once again, will be reminded this weekend of the grand chasm that remains between the values they trumpet and those shared by their (unpaying) customers. Stop-Loss flops. But American values like duty, honor, and intellectual honesty win.