Paramount's Stop-Loss campaign to fool the public.

Politics: Yet another Anti-War,Iraq,Military movies coming to the plexes but this time trying to at least get a first week boost, Paramount is trying to lie about the content. Even the Hollywood Reporters embarrassingly tries to cover for the subject matter.

With its morally complex story of soldiers who have served in Iraq, Paramount's upcoming "Stop-Loss" offers a more direct and gritty account of a current soldier's experience than any commercial feature to date. Yet you wouldn't know it from the trailer, which emphasizes a young cast in moments of camaraderie in Texas. Or from the poster, which has the vibe of a "Friday Night Lights" or "Varsity Blues" as much as "Platoon" or "Full Metal Jacket." Such is the paradox of Kimberly Peirce's "Stop-Loss," which, after being moved from the fall to avoid the boxoffice hacksaw faced by other war pictures, holds its premiere Monday in Los Angeles before opening wide March 28. The movie addresses the complexities and pressures of those currently serving in the modern military in ways arguably no studio has. And yet the recent boxoffice fate of Iraq movies has prompted Paramount to take a notably careful approach that downplays the war. The movie is being sold as an MTV Films picture with an attractive young cast (Ryan Phillippe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) that will lure people to theaters for other reasons. Those who worked on earlier Iraq pictures say that, while they hope someone finally can reverse the genre's fortunes, they're pessimistic that marketing, subject matter and timing will change their fate. "Anything that isn't full-on entertainment is going to struggle," said an exec involved with a fall Iraq movie. "You can try to sell it about the narrative or other things, but it's not like you can fool people. I wish it wasn't true, but we're all in a sinking boat." But some experts point out that "Stop-Loss" should be judged differently. "The problem is previous movies have been pretentious and preachy without saying anything new," Box Office Mojo's Brandon Gray said. "People want movies to take a stand. They don't want them to be mealy-mouthed."