Immanuel KaiMovie Review: American Sniper
Director Clint Eastwood is no stranger when it comes to spinning tales of war. After directing the iconic Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers, Eastwood returns with a moving biopic on the legendary American sniper Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) who still holds the record of 160 confirmed kills.
The movie opens with Kyle perched upon a rooftop overlooking an open area. He eyes a mother and child walking suspiciously towards a U.S. armored unit and is forced to choose between shooting the suspects or not.
The responsibility of such decisions is soul-crushing and Eastwood captures Cooper’s every inflection to paint the gritty realism of war.
The rest of the film deals with Kyle coming to grips with his double life as a soldier trained to kill and a family man. He appears more distant each time he returns from a tour from loved ones. At home, Kyle withdraws into the battlefield of his own mind, living amidst the phantom sounds of gunshots as his children play around him. He even tries to hurt the family dog in full view of his neighbors when he unwittingly deemed it as a threat to his boy.
Cooper has clearly gone full-on with his method acting, beefing up 40 pounds just for the role and earning an Oscar nomination in the process. His gruff beard and surprisingly authentic Texas accent recreate the all-American hero from the South. Though he maintains the charismatic persona from movies like The Hangover, Cooper delivers the role with dignity and vulnerability.
Being a sniper requires one to make split-second decisions and live with the consequences for the rest of his life. American Sniper is most engaging when we see Cooper in a catch-22 situation – to serve his country, or protect his conscience. Imagine the sniper locking target on an armed child, where the audience waits with bated breath on his decision. It’s the nightmare of war perpetuated through suffocating, heart-stopping scenes like these.
Sniper bears hallmarks of Eastwood’s usual cut-and-dry style of directing, which serves him well in piecing the film together via a series of staged scenes. However, the less-dramatic style introduces monotony and slows down the pace in an otherwise thrilling film. The fight scenes get repetitive quickly and even the visually stunning climax, a battle amidst a raging dust-storm, drags itself down with needless dialogue.
American Sniper might seem like your typical self-righteous film about America and its war on terror. The portrayal of the Iraqi people could have been better, the fight scenes a little more dramatic, and of course a real baby would have been nice. But at the heart of it all is a story about a simple man struggling to be a father and a husband after living through the atrocities of war.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Information:
Release Date: January 22
Runtime: 132 minutes
Language: English
Censorship rating: M18
Genre: Action, Drama.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Main Actors: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Jake McDorman, Luke Grimes
Photo Credits: Warner Bros. Picture