While the timing of the release of the new military drama "Stop-Loss" comes on the heels of the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, the last thing director and co-writer Kimberly Peirce wants people to think is that she's launched some sort of cinematic protest against the government.

In fact, the film, which opens in theaters Friday, is not so much about the war itself as it is the people who are serving in it and the effects a loophole in military policy is having on their friends and family.

"It's completely pro-soldier," Peirce said in a recent @ The Movies interview. "Being from a military family myself and having interviewed hundreds of soldiers, my whole point of the film was to tell the story from the soldiers' point of view as they are living it. The film is positive about the military and the people who believe in the idea of being patriotic."

The policy in question is also the film's title: "Stop-Loss." It's a loophole in a soldier's military contract that provides for their retention in the armed forces and prevents them from retiring once their term of service is complete.

The soldiers she interviewed don't have a problem with the Stop-Loss policy itself, Peirce said, but "the way it is being applied right now."

"There are ways it could be applied well, but they feel its being used as a back-door draft," Peirce said. "They feel it's recycling them."

In the film, Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) is dealt the Stop-Loss provision after his return home to Texas from a tour of duty in Iraq. Scarred by an ambush prior to the end of his tour, Brandon is determined to fight his Stop-Loss order, even if it means testing the loyalties of his longtime friend and fellow soldier, Sgt. Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) and the fears of his military family by going AWOL.

Complicating matters is that Brandon's main ally is Michele (Abbie Cornish), who aids him as a fugitive -- an ally who also happens to be Steve's fiancee.

At the heart of "Stop-Loss" is Brandon's strong bond with Steve, as well as fellow hometown soldier Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Peirce, who first won acclaim as director and writer of the 1999 drama "Boys Don't Cry" (which earned Hilary Swank her first Best Actress Oscar), said classic films like the Vietnam War drama "The Deer Hunter" were at the front of her mind when establishing the trio's friendship.

"What I love about 'The Deer Hunter' is just how much Michael (Robert De Niro) loves his friends. There's the scene where he jumps out of the helicopter into a river to save his friend, even though he is safe and could go home. It's so heartbreaking," Peirce observed. "There's also the scene where he fights to get his friends out of the POW camp where they are forced to play Russian roulette. That character to me was the idea of a real hero and a leader."

It was that sort of dedication between soldiers that Peirce found when researching for her script.

"'It's always about the men first' -- that's something that soldiers said to me over and over," Peirce said. "When you're over there it's about staying alive and keeping the guy next to you alive. Even keeping the guy next to you alive is more important than keeping yourself alive."

That inner turmoil is realized in Peirce's film, explaining why Brandon rebukes his Stop-Loss order.

"With Brandon's character, when he finds himself on some level feeling compromised because he can't protect his own men, that's the thing that breaks his heart," Peirce said. "This is a guy who wants to defend everything at home, but when he gets over there, he realizes that it's about defending the guys to your left and your right. But if he can't be a leader because of the circumstances, it's a big challenge for him."

The origin of "Stop-Loss" is rooted in two events for the filmmaker. A resident of New York City of 13 years at the time, Peirce said that she witnessed the World Trade Center towers fall on Sept. 11, 2001, calling it "very personal and devastating." But it wasn't until subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that things hit even closer to home.

"After we entered the war, I sort of knew that this was going to be a huge change ahead for the U.S., so I wanted to make a movie about why soldiers went to war, what their experience in combat was like, and how they felt like after coming home," Peirce recalled. "But right about that time my little brother told us that he was enlisting and that he was going to Iraq. While we had a grandfather in World War II, overnight we had become a contemporary military family. So my sister, my mother and I dealt with that on a very profound level every day."

Suffering injuries that precluded him from entering further combat, Peirce's brother has since retired from the military and is home safe. But her worries for others haven't stopped, given her personal involvement in the "Stop-Loss" movie Web site, where all users are invited to sound off about their own Stop-Loss experiences.

"We have so many people writing in," Peirce said. "Soldiers are saying, 'I've been Stop-Lossed, this is the story of my life. Wives have been writing in, saying, 'My husband's been Stop-Lossed and he's not going to see the birth of my child'?it's affecting so many people."