Stop Loss - or UKPP as most locals call it around here in Austin (short for The Untitled Kimberly Pierce Project) – was easily one of the most anticipated films of SXSW 2008. Written by a native, shot in and out of town and pertaining to residents of the area, the film generated so much interest that when festival producer Matt Dentler introduced the film as being, “the movie I got the single most calls about saying, ‘You have to play this.’”

The title comes from an unfair clause in a soldier’s contract that acts as a loophole in wartime that states the army can keep you even after you’ve served your tour of duty. This clause has been commonly exercised under the George W. Bush regime and has, in some ways, been the lifeblood that allows America to stay at war in Iraq.

The story is simple. A group of friends comes back home from war and reunites with their loved ones, for better or for worse. When memories of their final, particularly painful combat mission send them all mentally into different dark tortured places, their home lives fall apart and they desperately try to help each other out. But when the leader of the pack Brandon King (played by Ryan Phillippe) is stop-lossed and faces the decision whether to flee his country and his army, their lives might never be the same.

The acting is weak – particularly Ryan Phillippe, whose more striking moments make you jolt back a bit because they seem so insincere. It’s a pity too, because the direction is pretty good and the film could hold some solid ground as one of the first Hollywood films to discuss the war so pointedly…that is until it chickens out in its frighteningly patriotic, unrealistic climax, which left me pretty much dumbfounded. But the outlook for three quarters of the film is appropriately grim, and the tones are hit correctly when the acting doesn’t get in the way.

The abrasive SXSW pre-show presentation that Pierce chose to use served as a little window as to where the film went wrong. We were greeted with blaring rock music and stills from the battle flashbacks in the film. Pierce, the sibling of an army-man herself, detailed in her intro the images and sounds she would get back from her brother over IM while he was away in combat. She said she wanted to make the film through the perspective of the soldiers, using their music, etc. Perhaps the performances and plotting would’ve worked better as less of an unbiased study of aggression and more of a critique of the current political situation, as the script seems to be. It’s as if the two things are working against each other and the actors are veering off in a different direction from the themes.

The pieces that do work are the individual moments that remain intact and true to themselves. But, on the whole, it’s not so hard to come out of Stop-Loss with that uncomfortable feeling of not knowing where it stands.