Female Film Critics 24/375
Kimberly Peirce’s film, Stop Loss (2008), delves into an egregious and little known policy currently affecting military personnel and their families. Soldiers who’ve completed tours of duty in Iraq are being sent back to the war zone for second and third tours, even if they don’t want to go.
Read moreDirector Kimberly Peirce could have easily made “Stop-Loss” into a paint-by-the-numbers war movie from MTV Films but, instead, she fills two hours with intense action, along with the quiet drumbeat of the human heart.
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Fiercely passionate, Stop-Loss director Kimberly Peirce may be petite in size but she’s absolutely a filmmaking force to be reckoned with. Peirce’s first major film was the critically acclaimed drama Boys Don’t Cry, based on the true story of transgender teen Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank earned her first Oscar for playing Brandon). Now after an eight-year gap in feature film directing, Peirce turns her attention to an equally emotional and hard-hitting story. Stop-Loss exposes a policy employed by the United States government to keep men and women whose tours of duty are over from leaving the military service. Starring two of Hollywood’s hottest young actors – Ryan Phillippe and Channing Tatum – Stop-Loss focuses on how being forced into another deployment in Iraq affects Sgt Brandon King (played by Phillippe).
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