American Sniper - Review Thread

Sitting in the theater of Clint Eastwood's second film of 2014, American Sniper, I noticed that the demographics leaned largely toward the 60-80 year old age range. That's entirely whom this film is aimed at. Eastwood for the most part makes moving, powerful and straightforward films in traditional narratives that are entertaining and overly philosophical while not necessarily being deep. American Sniper is made in the same manner highlighting the exploits of Chris Kyle, Navy SEAL and the deadliest sniper in recorded US history. It's an entertaining, suspenseful movie that is Eastwood's best since Letters from Iwo Jima. Like I said earlier however, it is made for the traditional crowd in that it's a straight-forward, not overly artistic or original film.

Bradley Cooper stars as Kyle, the Chief Petty Officer who comes to be known as 'Legend' among the infantry he's assigned to protect in Iraq. The movie cuts back and forth between his early years as a rodeo cowboy and his decision to join the Navy after seeing an embassy bombing on television. He's quickly shuffled along through the movie from BUDs training to seasoned sniper while struggling to raise a family back home.

American Sniper does what it means to do and does it well. It's suspenseful and energetic even during times when you know full well what's going to happen and therein lies some of the movies weaknesses. The movie is so ripe with war movie cliche, almost every one you can think of, that it's next to impossible to not see where the movie is going. A guy starts describing the ring he bought for his soon-to-be fiancé? You know how this scene is going to wind up. A military funeral? You can be sure that everyone will flinch during the twenty-one gun salute. And I have to admit that I was nervous in the opening scene also shown in the trailers where Cooper has his crosshairs on a little boy carrying a grenade towards American troops. He's getting ready to pull the trigger when his spotter whispers 'They'll burn you if you're wrong. You'll go to Leavenworth.' Wait, your job is to spot the targets, not sow seeds of doubt in my brain during the worst possible moment and explaining consequences that everyone is already fully aware of. That aside, however, the movie is a solid watch and while it might not challenge you or have that 'art house' feel to it, it's nice to see Eastwood come back with a film such as this after so many missteps as of late.

B+ so says Doomsday