American Sniper is a 2014 war film directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller.
Clint Eastwood’s films are very much like the old school, all-American cars that feature in a lot of them. They are reliable. They are big, bold, and dependable. There are no surprises. What you see is what you get. He is the Gran Torino of Hollywood directors. And I’d hazard a guess he’s not a Democrat.
An almost deific reverence for the US military permeates a lot of the films he has directed in the last decade. From the noble Marines in Flags of Our Fathers, to grizzled Korean War veteran Walt in Gran Torino, and now to a decorated Navy SEAL in American Sniper, it’s obvious Eastwood holds the American armed services in high regard. This is by no means a bad thing, it’s just that it makes for some very black and white films. There’s not a lot of grey in Eastwood’s American Sniper. It’s once again the heroic Americans against the evil terrorists. American Sniper is not a brilliant film. Like the cars I alluded to earlier, it’s dependable. It’s extremely well made. But there are no surprises. The battle scenes, while very well staged, filmed, and acted, are pretty much Whack-A-Terrorist. The villains, although apparently based on real people, are pretty stock standard Evil Terrorist Scum. The main bad guy even wears all black just so we're a hundred per cent clear this is a guy we're supposed to hate. And the Iraqi people in this film who are not the ‘bad guys’ even wear white in several scenes. Clint, dude, we get it. It’s nice to see that old age has made you no more subtle than when you were waving a 44 Magnum in people’s faces, but enough already.
The fact that Chris Kyle, the US Navy SEAL sniper this film is based on, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, is no surprise. The first human being he kills, seeing it close up through a high powered scope, is a small child. This is one of the film’s best scenes. The kid is running towards a Marine convoy carrying a grenade, so Kyle (Bradley Cooper) has no choice but to shoot him. This is the first scene it became apparent to me that Bradley Cooper has well and truly transcended being The Hangover guy, and can actually act. Eastwood lingers both on Cooper’s eyes, and his vision of the dead child through the scope. You can see all of Kyle’s training, patriotism, love of and need to protect his beloved America has come down to this single moment – the mind-numbing realisation that his job involves having to kill kids.
This leads into another great scene later on, where a small boy retrieves a grenade launcher from a guy Kyle has just killed. I loved the agony on Cooper’s face as he realises he may have to do it again. He’s quietly begging the kid not to pick it up. And then when the kid finally drops it and runs off, he is so relieved he almost throws up. Again, it’s all in Cooper’s eyes. His mind was already stretched like a rubber band. If he’d had to pull the trigger on a little kid again, it would have snapped. It’s a really impressive performance.
A scene early on sets the tone for the entire film. It’s a flashback to Kyle’s childhood, where his little brother gets bullied and beaten up at school. Around the dinner table later, his father tells the boys that there are three kinds of people in the world. Sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. It becomes obvious at that moment that Kyle took it upon himself to be the sheepdog. Becoming a sniper, able to protect other soldiers, was a natural fit for him. He even remarks later, when being counselled for PTSD, that it’s not the thought of people he killed that keeps him up at night. It’s the thought of the people he failed to protect.
The film reminded me a little bit of The Hurt Locker in the scenes where Kyle returns home and his wife (Sienna Miller) struggles to get him to communicate or stay home. He’s glad to be home, but at the same time it preys on his mind that while he is at home, he can’t be the sheepdog to his men anymore. I like the irony that he doesn’t realise he needs to be a sheepdog for his family as well.
Speaking of irony, I found the calls home really off-putting. Kyle has a satellite phone, and he repeatedly calls his wife back in the US. The problem is, he chooses really inappropriate times to do it. Like just as he’s about to snipe someone, and another time right as his convoy is heading into enemy territory. I kept thinking; why not just wait til you’re back at base? This leads to the strange irony of a scene where he says his wife needs to be ‘protected’ from hearing about his ‘work’, but then during these phone calls forces her to listen to him coming under fire. And he not once but twice leaves her uncertain as to whether or not he’s still alive by either dropping the phone or the signal crapping out. I’m surprised he was met with a hug when he returned home. I’d have expected a slap upside the head.
American Sniper is not a bad film. I think films like Lone Survivor and The Hurt Locker dealt with similar subject matter in much more effective ways, but it’s still a nicely executed war film with a strong central performance. And its proof that Eastwood still wields enormous talent from what must now be a pretty ergonomic director’s chair, even if he still has all the subtlety of a hydrogen bomb. Two and a bit hours well spent.
No comments:
Post a Comment