For all his talents, Clint Eastwood can be an intellectual lightweight. His “Jersey Boys”, the story of the 1960s pop band the Four Seasons, failed almost completely when it came to the music, and now “American Sniper” a war story taken from the immediate past has no backstory to it, it is a politically sterile look at legendary United States Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, who became a sharpshooter, spent four tours of duty in Iraq during the post-Hussein period and was murdered by a disturbed Veteran back home in 2013. The trial is ongoing.
The movie is 50 Shades Of Gray for men, it is soft porn violence gussied up with heroes you wouldn’t spit on if they were on fire in real life, dressed to kill. Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle is charming, he has always had a glimmer of humor about him, you can see it in “The Hangover” and you can certainly see it in “Silver Linings Playbook” -the twinkles, and he needs every twinkle to portray this killer in such starkly romantic terms. If you stop and think too hard about Kyle, the man killed 256 people, he is a little on the eeek side. Kyle was going off to kill people in Iraq when he didn’t have to under any circumstance. His memoir, the book “American Sniper” is based upon, had to retract the claim that he beat Jesse Ventura up. Why would he have lied about that? Wasn’t 100s of killings enough, did he also have to LIE ABOUT beating up professional wrestlers? How violent is violent enough?
Kyle is portrayed as a sort of Patton type fellow, you expect him to shout “Americans love war” at any moment. The truth is, anybody who has been a war zone (I spent, on and off, from 1975 – 1979 in the middle of the Lebanese civil war) and likes it is a psychopath. I don’t deny the charms of war zones but when you’re there it is very very fucking scary and as for what side you’re on: that’s easy, any side that is trying to kill you? You’re on the other side. Kyle knows this but has a built in jingoism about it
These are concepts that are skimmed: Kyle was a good ol’ boy, that’s what we know about him, a Patriot, his father’s parable that there are three types of people, sheep, wolves and sheepdogs, is asinine and also not true. Essentially all civilians are sheep, all enemy armies are wolves,and all soldiers are sheepdogs: completely ridiculous. But that is Kyle’s code of conduct. The story doesn’t feel true, it doesn’t feel real Kyle is too angelic, too brave, too self-effacing: the minute you hear the Jesse Ventura story it is clear, whoever Kyle was, he wasn’t this guy.
The movie is really a one man show. Sienna Miller as his wife spends the movie whining, though the scene where they meet for the first time in the bar is the best in the movie, and EVERYBODY else spends the movie calling Kyle a legend. It actually gets a little irritating. And Cooper has the charm, and the smile, and the twinkle, to pull it off. He saves it, he should have played Frankie Valli in “Jersey Boys”.
If you can leave your brain at the door, “American Sniper” is an exciting war movie, with a very clever construction – an Iraqi sniper and Kyle battling it out kill for kill, Two of the set pieces are nail chewing fabulousness. if. So, like I said, put your 50 shades of brains in a lockbox and enjoy the thrills.
Grade: B+