Stop-Loss
Grade: A-

Nine years after her very impressive debut feature film Boys Don’t Cry, writer/director Kimberly Peirce returns with this searing yet humane indictment of the war in Iraq. Ryan Phillippe is astonishingly good as a soldier who goes AWOL when he returns to his home in Texas and the military extends his tour of duty on the day he’s set to retire. Abbie Cornish, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and male model Channing Tatum deliver raw and memorable performances. Apart from a few ill-advised forays into cinema verité Peirce proves that her long hiatus from filmmaking hasn’t diminished her uncanny eye for detail or her compassion for misfits and struggling working class Americans.

In wide release starting March 28th. I'll be interviewing Ms. Peirce when she comes to Portland next week, and I'll probably post that interview on the blog sometime in mid-March.