Movie Review: American Sniper

American Sniper (2014)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Director                              Clint Eastwood
Writer                                 Jason Hall
Cinematography              Tom Stern

Editing                                 Joel Cox, Gary Roach
Bradley Cooper                 Chris Kyle
Sienna Miller                     Taya Kyle

 

Clint Eastwood has a style to his directing that condenses a movie and its themes down to the rock hard basics. In one of the best American movies made in the past 25 years, “Unforgiven” (1992), Eastwood developed this style to create an artistic vision of what life as a gunslinger in the Old West was really like. Eastwood and his writer, David Peoples described the metaphorical ending of the “Old West” even as they told the actual last days of Billy Munny’s career as a hired gun. By combining the cinematic genius of Jack Green with action sequences that had every unnecessary flourish squeezed out, Eastwood was able to create a lasting vision of a violent time that was coming to a close. With the less inspired “American Sniper”, Eastwood tells the story of US Navy Seal, Chris Kyle. Like “Unforgiven”, Eastwood again seeks to explore a violent world; this particular world was the war time scenes that the real Chris Kyle moved through during the second Iraq war, but also the war within for many returning vets. And again as in “Unforgiven”, Eastwood drills down to the essentials: should I shoot this target, this man, this woman, this child and save my buddies, risk Leavenworth prison if I am wrong, or should I let this man/woman/child go on living? Tough questions faced the real Chris Kyle and Eastwood does an excellent job of illustrating them in “American Sniper”.

We meet Chris in Iraq on his first tour; his first assignment in the field as a sniper. He lies upon a bed like surface and stares down into the street below. A small contingent of Marines is moving along the street; Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) is there to provide cover. As he watches, a woman and a young boy come into the street, perhaps 200 meters away from the Marines. Through his scope, Chris can see the woman pass a grenade to the boy. Chris seeks direction by radio from his commander. He is given the okay to use his discretion. As he ponders the situation, his colleague sitting to Chris’ side warns Chris that should he err with regards to the intent of the boy and his presumed mother, Chris will go to prison for murder. This scene does not stand alone in “American Sniper”. There are other similar situations where Chris must make quick decisions; decisions where he may take a life to save a life, or decline to do so, but place the lives of his comrades in jeopardy. Eastwood’s decision to place this conundrum right at the beginning of the movie is brilliant. It sums up the entire movie; it provides Cooper with one of his best opportunities to act by showing the face of a man that must make such a decision. Eastwood does not let the audience know right away how Chris will act. Instead, he has the movie jump back to earlier points in Chris’ life: a hunt with his father, an argument with an unfaithful girl-friend, his decision to join and train with the SEALs. As we parse through Chris’ younger years, we are also introduced to the woman he will marry: Taya (Sienna Miller). Cooper and Miller both provide multiple examples of fine acting, though for the most part, the role of Chris is fairly mono-tonic. What variations in his expressed emotions there are, are generally confined to scenes like the one referred to above. Despite Chris evidently being a better shot when he shoots at something alive (according to Chris during his SEAL training), he still bears the weight of his actions. When he is asked this very question on at least two occasions in the movie, he always passes the effects off by saying he is devoted to saving his comrades and actually feels remorse only at not saving more of them. Based on Cooper’s portrayal, I would agree that he feels remorse at the loss of his teammates, but I would demur on whether taking another life, had no effect on him.

The movie’s dramatic tension does come from a familiar place. Chris becomes “infected” with his passion to save every Marine he is assigned to protect; that he cannot do so has a big impact on him. However, the biggest effect is on his stateside personality and his ability, his inability to re-adapt to a non-war time environment. When he returns home, he is distant and distracted. He pays too little attention to his wife or children. He jumps at any sudden sound and comes close to beating his dog for its rough behavior with Chris’s son. Chris makes four trips to Iraq. He takes the lives of 160 combatants and he saves the lives of many of the Marines he is there to provide cover for; but he does not save them all. After losing one teammate and attending his funeral, he is repulsed by statements read by the dead SEAL’s mother but accorded to the deceased SEAL about whether or not their efforts in the war had value. Chris states that such feelings were ultimately what led to his friend’s death, but it is clear in Chris’ eyes that he too and despite his continual statements to the contrary, is beginning to wonder about whether the American lives lost should have been lost in such a war.

The movie is constructed of many quick cut edited scenes. I did not measure them exactly, but you get the sense that each scene almost never takes more than about 30 seconds. The movie is made of these scenes, some from each of Chris’ four tours in Iraq (adding up to about 1000 days total), plus the scenes at home where he struggles to disconnect from the war and to reconnect to Taya. Much of the acting by Miller consists of her valiantly trying to help Chris; shortly after the conclusion and with the help of a psychiatrist, Taya does help Chris to finally find a place at home. The real life irony of how he did so, by helping other vets with PTSD, and how one such very troubled vet eventually takes Chris’ life is an individual tragedy that in many ways sums up the deep downside of this ultimately pointless war. That Chris was able to help many of his comrades is poignantly shown by their turnout along the roadway, upon which a hearse carried his body to its final resting place. These scenes along the roadway to the cemetery are played during the closing credits and were for me easily the most heartbreaking.

Eastwood has created a very good movie that examines the complexities of war but has done so in his characteristic minimalist manner. He examines on several occasions the extremely tough choices that must be made in split seconds by soldiers and Marines in a war zone. He shows the lasting corrosive effects on the minds and souls of those warriors when they return home. What I found lacking in the movie is in relation to the Eastwood style of condensed scenes. I found them too spare, too focused on the dissociation that so many of those warriors must adopt to get through the hell of war. From my point of view, I struggled much more with this movie than with “Unforgiven” to feel as I assumed the protagonist in this movie must have felt. I understand the sense that such a man must at times take on the role of a robot, and while it may have been the true depiction of Chris the man; it took some of the heart out of the movie based on that very same man. “American Sniper” is very good movie, but unlike “Unforgiven” it is not a great movie.