Clint Eastwood’s best war film is Letters from Iwo Jima. Its partner film, Flags of our Fathers is also very good though more sentimental, less precise, and less revered. American Sniper is far more like the latter, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have brilliance to it. It just means that it’s not the sweeping statement of war, or even the Iraq war, that people might be thinking it is. In fact, like Flags of our Fathers, American Sniper is a tribute to a fallen war vet, a sincere memorial to a brave soldier’s legacy.
The movie I had in my head, which doesn’t count for a hill of beans, was a statement against the war after this sniper killed a record number of men, women and yes, children in Iraq so that when he came home he was a hollow man. That Chris Kyle was then famously “accidentally shot” at a shooting range is a big part of his story, a profound irony for the military’s greatest sniper, yet for this film it is merely a footnote.
Eastwood was not interested in making Kyle’s death the biggest part of his story and was clearly devoted to the notion that the vet ought to be remembered for his heroic and traumatic service at war time. The story about the gun, the subsequent shootout with cops as they pursued Kyle’s killer opens a debate about gun violence in the US, a futile, pointless death juxtaposed against the 160 Iraqis Kyle killed. That’s an interesting dynamic but it is not part of American Sniper.
Instead, this film is about the difficulties fighting that endless, horrific war (which continues to rage on) and Kyle’s refusal to accept that he was afflicted with PTSD, struggling with survivor guilt seemed to torment him more.
All the same, it’s difficult to know what to feel watching the film, though I suspect if you believe we fought the good fight in Iraq or that our thousands of soldiers killed over there was worth it you will find this story resonates more than if you are someone who opposes the war and believes that we had no business going in.
The film draws a parallel between 9/11 and Iraq that, from Kyle’s point of view, he was amped and ready to go when the towers were hit, never mind that they were hit by Al Qaida – his country called him to fight and he believed that’s what he was fighting for.
Thoughout the film, Kyle rages against the enemy and that rage is never undone, as it is in Kathryn Bigelow’s anti-war film, The Hurt Locker. Eastwood clearly feels that this man fought for his country and paid a high price as he tried to fit in to the life he was supposed to have back home, a happy love nest with his wife (Sienna Miller) and their two kids.
Naturally, the war scenes are the most vivid thing about the film. They are terrifying. Eastwood does not sugar coat what Kyle had to do, which included shooting children, though that was clearly the thing that troubled him most. He had to shoot any kid who aimed weapons with the intent to kill Marines. In once bravura sequence, the soldiers are caught up in a dust storm – and only then do we see any sort of commentary on this ongoing war.
Miller does her best with what she has to work with but indeed, those scenes have less impact than the war scenes because she doesn’t have much to do – Eastwood is great with women on film, always has been, and despite the clunky dialogue he gives her some nice moments.
The real standout and the reason to see this movie, however, is Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle. Cooper disappears into the role, illustrating remarkable versatility. He packed on the pounds and nailed Kyle’s accent. In a competitive year of great male performances, Cooper’s is a standout.
But American Sniper suffers, like all films around this time of year, from inflated expectations of Oscar bloggers who called it as a strong Best Picture contender early on. That is how we end up with the movies in our heads and why sometimes that can be a detriment to the film ultimately.
It also followed Ava DuVernay’s Selma on the night it premiered at the AFI Fest, a cinematic experience that was the best anyone could hope for. American Sniper will make lots of money, particularly outside the big blue cities and deep in the red states.
We must never dismiss nor take for granted what our soldiers have done in service of our country. We train them to take the mission whether they agree with it or not. What a shame that their fates are in the hands of people who make such bad decisions with their precious lives.
