'Stop' passes muster

As their squad handles roadblock duty in Tikrit, it comes under fire from a passing car. King and his squad give chase, and what results is a heart-in-throat combat sequence, perhaps the best we have seen coming out of Iraq, that enables us to feel the overwhelming tension of building-to-building fighting and how that fosters an intense camaraderie among the combatants.

Peirce not only manages to powerfully hook us into the fate of men we barely know, she also shows how disturbed they are by the nature of combat in Iraq, by the way the enemy intertwines itself with innocent civilians and all but dares Americans to shoot. The event in Tikrit takes up only a fraction of "Stop-Loss' " time, but what happens there hangs over the rest of the film.

That battle takes place about a month before the men are sent back home, and "Stop-Loss" picks up the story in Brazos, Texas, hometown to Brandon and his friends. They are welcomed back by Brandon's proud parents (Ciaran Hinds and Linda Emond), an oily senator (Josef Sommer) as well as Steve's longtime fiancee and King family friend Michele (Abbie Cornish).

Despite all these happy faces, "Stop-Loss" is especially good at showing the malaise lurking under the relief of being home. Echoing the Oscar-nominated documentary "The Ground Truth," this film illuminates the terrible disconnect that can happen when men trained to kill and haunted by death find themselves back in a civilian life that now seems as strange to them as Iraq once did.

As the squad leader, Brandon feels responsible for men like Tommy, who gets thrown out by his wife (Mamie Gummer) and retaliates by shooting up their unopened wedding presents. Brandon is proud of the service he's given, but he wants to get out of that life. Unfortunately, as detailed by his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Boot Miller (a fine Timothy Olyphant), Brandon has been stop-lossed, victimized by fine print in his enlistment contract that allows the military to involuntarily extend his service if necessary.

Incensed by what he considers to be "a back-door draft," Brandon goes over the edge, fleeing the base and deciding to go to Washington to see if that friendly senator can do anything about it. Michele, disenchanted by Steve's disturbing behavior since his return, agrees to come along.