If you’ve seen the trailers for “Stop-Loss,” there’s a particularly memorable Ryan Phillippe quote: “I honored my contract, and I expect the army to do the same.”
Only one problem: The quote is nowhere in the film.
And there seems to be good reason for that. Soldiers taking to the Internet, including on the movie’s IMDB.com page, point out that a standard enlistment contract is for eight years — and whatever is not served in the active military will be served as a reserve.
Although the terminology isn’t there, “stop-loss” is clearly in the contract, too: “In a time of war or national emergency declared by the Congress, I may be required to serve on active duty for the entire period of the war … ,” the contract says. (Although, Phillippe's character does argue that President Bush has declared the war is over.)
Check out section 10 of the contract here.
It’s no wonder the Phillippe quote found its way on to the cutting room floor. But how did it ever make it into the trailers in the first place?
Was writer and director Kimberly Peirce in such a rush to make a political statement that she didn’t bother to read an enlistment contract until just prior to the film’s release? Or did she think her audience was too ignorant to know the truth or too lazy to find out?
With or without the quote, knowing how clear the contract is, it waters down, if not completely destroys, any sort of message Peirce was trying to make about a solider who was dumbfounded that he was being sent back to Iraq. He obviously never read his contract.
— Ryan Chatelain