American Sniper
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast Headliners: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller
Original Release Date: December 25th, 2014
Seen: January 2015
American Sniper, made by the intriguing team of Clint
Eastwood with star Bradley Cooper, seems to have gotten more buzz about its
messages and award nominations than its actual content. This film, about the
late sniping Navy Seal legend Chris Kyle
certainly is more than it appears to be on the surface.
The movie is about Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) both at
war in Iraq and at home. Some
interesting time jumps show his life from boyhood, to life in Texas, to
training, to his four tours of duty in service in the military and
afterwards. The shifting tones and
locales are handheld well, and Cooper’s does a pretty good job at showing how
Kyle was affected by the experience. Now it’s a point of contention, but he
appears to be the same if not hallowed person as he witnesses the horrors of
war. Perhaps that may be the point, and in any case the portrait of Kyle as a person
is mostly well shown one. The other prime character who gets the most dialogue
and is explored is Sienna Miller as his wife Taya. Their scenes are fraught with emotion and
the two have a warm chemistry.
The prime value of this movie however lies in the theater
of war. Director Clint Eastwood has been
involved with action in his works before, and it certainly shows. Whether it be
via long range sniper shots right through the scope or intense close quarters
shootouts the action is visceral and brutal when it needs to be and
appears. While at times it appears to
perhaps exaggerate what really occurred, such as when enemy soldiers are
leaping from building to building like out of some video game, it manages to be
an overall gritty experience.
This is a dark film. Tons of enemy soldiers are shown
being killed which ties into his over 100 hundred kills, and this shockingly
even includes children. It’s not easy to
see enemy or friendly die, and there’s a quality interplay of combatants on the
battlefield.
While offering a pretty good experience of what Kyle went
through in the field of modern warfare it isn’t perfect. There are the
previously mentioned small exaggerations, which also includes a spot or two of
fake seeming bloody wounds and Kyle’s babies being portrayed by plastic toy
dolls. But one has too look closely for these.
For a biography of a modern soldier, the movie is a solid if not a tad
jingoistic time. 8.6 out of 10
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