American Sniper Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: American Sniper
Year: 2014
Director: Clint Eastwood
Country: US
Language: English

As an actor, Clint Eastwood is a legend; rarely does he play a wrong part. throughout his career he has created memorable characters like the man with no name from Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy and Harry from Dirty Harry. I have a harder time buying Clint Eastwood as a credible director. Certainly he has a few good films under his belt (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby) but he has made just as many poor pictures (Gran Torino, J. Edgar) and, I'd argue, has yet to make a true masterpiece. American Sniper is his latest venture, it was nominated for "Best Picture" at the 2015 Academy Awards. 

Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle's (Bradley Cooper) pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a legend. Back home to his wife and kids after four tours of duty, however, Chris finds that it is the war he can't leave behind.

When it comes to war films, American Sniper is in the shallow pool.  It turns the complex politics of the Iraq War into a sugarcoated near-propaganda piece. Much like Vietnam, the goal of the Iraq War was heavily debated and still confuses people to this day. The United States won nothing in the war; in-fact they may have lost their credibility as "peace-keepers" considering the staggering amount of innocent Iraqi casualties. Eastwood asks us to see Kyle, a man who had over 160 confirmed kills, as a martyr for his country but chooses to ignore the consequences of invading a country that had no ties to 9/11 and no meaningful ties to Al Queda. At no point does Eastwood even consider telling us that the war was based on false accusations.

Granted Eastwood does choose to show some alienation (que cliche soldier saying "I don't even know why I'm here, man!") and some consequences of war such as Kyle's post trauamatic stress disorder but it doesn't even come close to reality. Even Kyle's sniping isn't accurate; you can't just point at your target and shoot, especially during an approaching sandstorm. A sniper has to take in account distance, wind, the rotating reference frame, hemisphere and many other calculations. 

Of course, it's easy to criticize the United States decision about the Iraq War after the fact. In 2001, people from all over the world had the same thoughts of shock and awe after 9/11. Most Americans thought Iraq did have Weapons of Mass Destruction and that the elimination of Al Queda was an absolute necessity. Kyle's feelings did ring true and American Sniper is an accurate depiction of the blind patriotism that was rampant throughout the early 2000's. If made ten years ago, it would definitley have won "Best Picture". Unfortunately, it's a picture that arrived too late on the scene and is full of outdated rhetoric. 

It was quite strange to be on the side of a man with such a simplistic view of evil and who frequently called the Muslim community as a whole "savages". Overall I found myself in awe from the well-choreographed combat scenes. The picture isn't bad as mindless entertainment as it has aesthetic value and is quite stunning visually. However, the moral and political implications from American Sniper are quite disturbing. Perhaps Eastwood thought he was portraying the war in an honest light, perhaps he didn't care, but he could have done a more thorough job. 2.5/5