Clint Eastwood’s heavy-handed film about the most lethal sniper in American history suffers from a bad case of the Hollywood treatment.
You might expect a film about snipers to ask what it’s like to wait in the same spot for hours, anticipating a kill, and what runs through a sniper’s mind in those moments after one. US Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), has his crosshair on a child. The child has a grenade and Kyle must make a difficult choice. Those questions are certainly raised in American Sniper but before we’re able to do any imaginative conjuring, Clint Eastwood’s film quickly moves on.
At the heart of American Sniper lies a problem. It isn’t entirely sure what it wants to say. Is it a meditation on what makes a person go to war? Or on the unique emotional realities of being a sniper? Is it about military celebrity and the dangers this brings both at war and at home? That Eastwood tries to make his film about all of this is his biggest mistake. He simply doesn’t have the space and his comments are reduced to ham-fisted cliches and vague allusions.
Whether American Sniper’s attitude to killing is intentionally complicated is difficult to gauge too. Eastwood veers from glorification – a glamorising slow motion bullet – to questioning the point of war at a military funeral. Cooper’s withdrawn, uncommunicative Kyle fails to elevate the exploration of post traumatic stress disorder to Hurt Locker magnitude and American Sniper is left bulging with misdirected potential.
VERDICT: ✭ ✭ ✭ 3/5
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 132 minutes
UK Release Date: 16 January 2014
Images: © 2014 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., WV Films IV LLC and Ratpac-Dune Entertainment LLC-U.S., Canada, Bahamas & Bermuda
Review first printed in Ashfield & Mansfield Chad
It’s not a perfect movie. But it’s more thoughtful than I expected it to be, and for that, it deserves at least some credit. Good review.
Thanks Dan. I think we might have gone into this one quite differently – I had hoped it would be more thought provoking than it is and left disappointed. It does have some strong scenes though and I think Cooper performs well with what he’s given.
I’m honestly not that interested in seeing this, Oscar noms notwithstanding. I did read about the creepy fake baby, yikes!!
Yeah, that fake baby just put me right out of the scene. Remember his “Pale Rider”? It used a fake dead dog in a scene in that, too.
Yeah the fake baby is weird. I didn’t know that about the dead dog though – good film knowledge!
I agree, Natalie. I found some of the audience’s reaction in my screening, and friends have reported the same in theirs, to be a little off-putting. I don’t think Eastwood was going for that (I could be wrong, though), but it did seem that knocking the rough edges of Chris Kyle in real life was. Some scenes were well done, but there is not enough of them. I think this pales next to “Letters From Iwo Jima.”
Yes I’m not sure he was trying to go for that either. It’s a shame the film feels so jumbled – as you say there are some good scenes hidden in there and what should be some very interesting subject matter.
Nice review, it’s been really interesting reading everyone’s take on this movie. To be honest, I didn’t hear about this movie until it got an Oscar nom haha.
Thanks. Yes, this one seems to have some very mixed reviews. It’s not one that I would have put in the Best Picture category, but we’ll have to see what happens on Oscar’s night…
‘Whether American Sniper’s attitude to killing is intentionally complicated is difficult to gauge too’
That’s a great point Natalie, i tend to think that Eastwood left this vague on purpose to get viewers thinking. I could be wrong though!
Thanks Mikey. That’s an interesting theory – it certainly got me thinking.
Good honest take, Natalie. I havent seen it yet but i suspected it might be more Hurt Locker type propaganda! Im not a fan of these types of films. Ill still check it out but not expecting too much.
Thanks. I got quite a lot out of Hurt Locker but American Sniper is not in the same league. On reflection it feels more like missed opportunity to explore some big questions.
To be honest, I hated Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty for their unashamed propaganda. It looks like I might enjoy Sniper even less. Cheers for the heads-up, Natalie! 🙂
I was pretty much riveted by this, but I do think that Kyle could have been delved into more. Great review Natalie.
Hi Jackson. Yes this one is getting some of the most mixed reviews I’ve read in a while! Glad you liked it though. I wish we had seen more depth, to me it felt like Eastwood was trying to do too much.