On it’s way to a record January opening this weekend, ‘American Sniper’ (while snubbed by the Golden Globes) appears to be on the path to be the Oscar darling this year. Whether that status is merited by Clint Eastwood’s latest endeavor is up to the viewer to decide, but I will say that as Clint Eastwood becomes firmly ensconced in his 80’s, he is producing some of the best work of his life. I’ll go further to say that this is Bradley Cooper’s most powerful and skillful performance to date. I think one of the reasons for this film’s success is that movie goers are not looking for an ambiguous message about our struggles in the Middle East. With the challenges of ISIS and the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks, this film stands in stark contrast with a man laser focused on what he feels must be done with little regard to the complexities of the Middle East conflict at large. Clint Eastwood takes ‘American Sniper’ to a surprising level of apoliticalness as it examines the life and psyche of America’s most lethal sniper; Chris Kyle.
Chris Kyle is credited with 160 official kills in Iraq. Clint Eastwood paints the portrait of a cowboy and hunter from Texas who was so affected by 9/11 that he joined the Navy Seals at the relatively old age of 30. Chris is the very portrait of a Texan good ole boy and has a basic, yet very clear view, of what he considers right and wrong. Raised in a harsh, conservative household, Chris’s sense of duty and patriotism left him no choice than to go and serve his country. Redneck to the point of parody, one must admire Chris Kyle’s love of country and sense of duty if nothing else.
What i found impressive about this film is that Eastwood spends little time wrestling with complex issues or even questions of the morality of Chris’s line of work. Instead, it is a character study of the man and what drove him. I marveled at the dichotomy of how a good natured country boy could also be a lethal killing machine and not seem to have any doubt about his calling. The emotional baggage he carried home with him had more to do with the horrors he saw and the guilt that he couldn’t save more of his comrades than the amount of carnage he was responsible for.
I am not a fan of biopics as I find their usual documentary style to be dull with the perspective slant of the story teller. This is definitely true of ‘American Sniper’. What I found impressive was the art of Eastward’s storytelling. His use of long silences and close ups were hypnotic. He often replaced action and explosions (not that there weren’t plenty of those) with vacuum and the results were more riveting than any fire fight could have portrayed. His compare and contrast of the horror of war and Kyle’s life back home were stark. Some of the most sobering scenes were when Chris was talking with family back home via satellite phone while the carnage and war was going on around him.
Sienna Miller plays Chris’s wife Taya. This character was not developed near well enough and was used basically as someone to create emotional conflict and drama with Chris and allowed us to more empathize with him. From interviews I’ve seen with her, I feel her role was much broader and would have been interesting to delve in more deeply. This film was squarely about Chris and at 2.5 hours, I don’t think Eastwood could have fit in much more.
I think this film will be intense and powerful for everyone who watches. The impact will be more significant if one is able to set aside their political prisms and view this from a character study point of view. Eastwood illustrates the realities of what is happening in the Middle East without trying to rationalize or judge U.S. policies. I can see why this film is resonating in America right now as clarity can be attractive during complex times even if it is not always what we consider ‘correct’. Whether you agree with him or not, Chris Kyle saw the world clearly from his perspective and never wavered from his values no matter what he saw or did. Combine that with Bradley Cooper's incredibly emotional and powerful performance, the best of his career, and you have a film that will be buzzed about during the Oscars.
I give this film *** out of four stars
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