Entertainment

DRIVES YOU UP AWOL

AFTER five years of news footage and documentaries coming from the war in Iraq, “Stop-Loss” is as phony as a re-enactment with finger pup pets.

“Stop-Loss” is a highly patriotic film, if you happen to dream of the restored caliphate as you sleep in your Osama bin Laden pajamas. Its message is that the good guys are US soldiers who decide to desert, such as a sergeant played by Ryan Phillippe. (Another soldier, played by Channing Tatum of “Step Up,” is the villain: He wants to re-enlist.)

Sgt. Brandon King (Phillippe) returns home to Texas to be pinned with a medal for noble service in Iraq, where he led his men into a lethal situation any member of the Salvation Army would have immediately recognized as an ambush.

He and the other actors compete to out-crazy each other while yokelizing their accents a couple of notches past “Texan” to “stroke victim.” Every sentence must contain the word “ain’t,” and everybody spends their time killin’ rattlers when they’re not relaxing in the “Little House on the Prairie” shacks they call home.

Tatum’s character, Shriver, digs himself a foxhole in the front yard and starts howling about enemies in the night, while Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) drives into a lamppost and shoots his wedding presents with a rifle.

Then Sgt. King, who is supposed to be discharged, learns that he has been hit with a stop-loss order requiring him to re-report for duty.

The Army stop-loss program is disturbing but it’s also an unfortunate necessity when there is neither a draft nor a volunteer spirit; it wasn’t needed in, say, the Korean War. Tough as it is to take, a soldier can’t do much about it, and the military would fall apart if it didn’t punish runaways.

The mention of the stop-loss policy is the last time the movie intersects with reality. From then on, it’s strictly comedy or maybe sci-fi. Sgt. King gets to march into the office of a lieutenant colonel (Timothy Olyphant), jumping over the intervening seven ranks to announce, “With all due respect, f – – – the president.” Sure.

About to be brought to the stockade, Sgt. King simply punches out a couple of minders and runs. Getting away with this in the middle of a military base in daylight is about as likely as escaping from a submarine, but never mind, it’s on to the next howler.

Brandon tells his parents about his refusal to report, but they neglect to beat him with the nearest mop handle and instead cheer him on. Desert away, my boy! And for no discernible reason, his best friend’s girl (Abbie Cornish) jumps in a car with him. Brandon plans to ask a senator he once shook hands with for help, as soon as they can drive to Washington. Because there ain’t no phones in Texas.

As we cut from Texas to their road trip (the two of them are constantly driving over bridges), Brandon continues to wear his fatigues despite being on the run from MPs. He even walks into a military hospital, where the movie proves it thinks sergeants are addressed as “Sir.”

The Timberlakish Phillippe does his best to play things wacky/flashbacky, “First Blood”-style, with three street toughs who bust up his car. “OK, Hadjis!” he cries. “Y’all better start prayin’ to Allah!” He also dives into a swimming pool, imagining a buddy is lying on the bottom. More than an hour goes by before he realizes senators don’t actually help deserters (at least until Sen. Al Franken is sworn in).

In the alternate reality of “Stop-Loss,” desertion, a crime punished by most armies through most of history with a firing squad, is handled about the same way as staying out after dark to play kick the can even though your mama done told you to be back in time for supper.

But never mind all that, because in the closing moments, the film reverses course on everything it supposedly stands for, except absurdity.

kyle.smith@nypost.com