Stop-Loss

Five years ago, the United States invaded Iraq. Five years later, the United States is still there, the violence seemingly getting worse. More than 4,000 soldiers are dead. The war is a major issue in the presidential race, the two Democratic candidates arguing for withdrawal and the presumptive Republican nominee saying we need to stay and not so easily admit defeat.

In her new movie, Stop-Loss, Kimberly Pierce, best known for her 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, goes beyond the rhetoric by focusing on the soldiers, their pain and struggles, the cost they pay for fighting a seemingly endless war.

In the film, Ryan Phillipe plays Brandon King, a soldier who has already seen two tours in Iraq. This last tour ended with several of his men dead in an ambush. King returns home to Texas, anxious to start a new life and leave the war back in Iraq.

But he can't quite escape. As soon as he's home, he's told he has to go back. King has been stop-lossed, a policy that allows the military to ship back soldiers even if their contract is up. The policy of stop-loss is essentially a back-door draft to make up for the shortage of soldiers.

King is livid. He's served his country long enough. He's seen too many awful things. His buddies are already struggling to adjust to a life that doesn't involve dodging bullets or seeing friends blown up by IEDs.

King decides, against the wishes of his best friend, Steve, played by Channing Tatum, to go AWOL, jumping in the car with Steve's girlfriend, and heading to Washington, D.C.

Along the way, he and his buddies deal with the boiling emotions felt by many veterans just returning home from war, the guilt and anger and post-traumatic stress disorder, the too-vivid images of death and destruction they have witnessed, the sheer senselessness of war itself.

To Pierce's credit, this isn't knee-jerk anti-war. These characters are red-blooded Americans who rushed to join the military and fight, like many did, after 911. As one character says, we might as well kill 'em in Iraq so we won't have to kill 'em in Texas.

The film's power is in how it shows these men's strong patriotism slowly disintegrate into frustration, confusion and disillusionment. They don't understand why they're fighting or more importantly, how long.

King, the moral center of the movie, fights within himself the sense of loyalty he has for the military and his friends and the feeling, ever growing inside him, that he just doesn't want to fight anymore, that he's done his time and he needs to move on.

The movie is melodramatic in some places, but the performances are strong, the tears well-earned. Pierce has pulled together a poignant movie that refuses to beat you over the head with its message. It just tells a story, making the personal very much political.

Meet The Browns

I love Angela Bassett. She, to this black man, is the epitome of strong black woman, providing support for her man but not afraid to walk away if she feels in anyway disrespected. Her eyes flash with anger one moment and soften with tears in the next.

Her chiseled physique belies the emotional strength she has within. She is a woman in all her complexities, human in the most beautiful way possible.

And that's why I was happy to see her in a leading role, something Bassett hasn't had in quite some time, underservedly so.

In Tyler Perry's new movie, Meet The Browns, Bassett plays Brenda, a single mother struggling to raise her three kids. Bills are piling up, and she can hardly afford daycare for her youngest. And just when things couldn't get any worse, she's laid off after the company she works for moves jobs overseas.

Tragedy provides the silver lining. She gets a letter telling her that the father she never knew has died and she needs to come to Georgia for the funeral.

When she arrives, she meets Leroy Brown, who is given to wearing too-tight shirts and pants that look like they were made from multi-colored quilts, and his crazy family.

As with all other Tyler Perry movies, there's a message, or at least a couple of them about faith in God and importance of family. Perry has always managed to mix in over-the-top humor with soap-opera drama effectively.

But he ultimately fails in this movie. The writing and direction feels rushed and forced. Some laughs are to be had, but many of the jokes fall flat.

Rick Fox is Angela Bassett's love interest, a former pro-basketball player trying to help her 17-year-old son improve his basketball skills for a shot at the pros while also trying to woo Brenda's heart. Fox, however, isn't the greatest actor, and the two fail to light any sparks.

And the problems are too simply solved in this movie. Now, no one expects realism from Perry, but we also don't expect to see one character get shot in one scene and run up and down the court like nothing happened in the next. We don't expect silly little obstacles in a burgeoning romance crop up that go away as easily as brushing some dust off the countertop.

When that happens, why root for anyone? You know things are going to work out anyway. Just give it five minutes.

The script feels as if it was undeveloped, and by the time the movie ends, you sense something is just missing. At the very least, you end up with stiff dialogue and contrived situations.

That's not to say the movie wasn't entertaining. It was. But after last year's much-better made Why Did I Get Married, arguably Perry's best movie to date, I came away from Meet The Browns disappointed and expecting more.

And Angela Bassett, my future wife if she ever divorces Courtney B. Vance (not likely at all), deserves better.

Persepolis

Out of pain comes art, often engaging visceral art, and that maxim is no doubt true of Persepolis, a beautifully rendered animated feature based on Marjane Sarapti's graphic novel of the same name.

It is set in Iran during the Islamic revolution, and Sarapti is but a nine-year-old child, rambunctious and still somewhat innocence.

But that innocence is shattered, as she learns about the brutal tyranny of the Shah. People all around her are rising up to overthrow the Shah and his dictatorship.

And the Shah does fall, but replaces that dictatorship, as Sarapti and her family quickly learn, is far worse. Fundamentalists impose their own vision of how life should be and brook no dissent. Women cover themselves in veils and are expected to be silent. Sarapti, however, can't keep her mouth shut, and as a result, she gets into plenty of trouble.

These are dangerous times, and her family eventually send Sarapti off to Austria for school, to protect her and give her a chance at a life.

Sarapti becomes a woman, finds her voice and discovers punk rock. She falls in love and has her heart broken, and soon, realizes, that as much as she hates Iran, she loves it, and returns.

But things haven't improved, and though she finds a way to thrive, she leaves again, knowing she cannot live within the limits the Iranian government proscribes.

Sarapti and the director Vincent Paronnaud have imbued this story, as painful as it often is, with a sharp and biting sense of humor. The political is balanced with the personal. We learn large chunks about Iranian history but we never lose site of Sarapti's intense struggle to be who she is in a society that doesn't always accept her.

We find here an Iran that we both love and hate, a country filled with horrific violence but also love. This is the message Sarapti sends over and over again throughout the movie: home is home, no matter how much it hurt you, how much it abused you. You have a connection to your home that cannot be denied. It is a physical place but home also exists in your mind and heart and cannot easily be forgotten.

And neither will you, once you see this movie.