AMERICAN SNIPER (Clint Eastwood 2014)

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/S.jpg

Saving the men

The great interest of American Sniper is its protagonist, not because he is complex but because he is so simple. Even in early adolescence he's seen with his dad making his first kill with a hunting rifle. His father divides the world up into good animals and bad animals. The sacred calling is to be the one who gets the bad guys, the "savages." This is how the enemy is to be seen. And yet though Clint Eastwood is a conservative, he isn't monolithic here, he has his sensitivities.

There is certain ambiguity about the Iraq war combat operations as seen here through Chris Kyle, the late real life Navy Seal (based on his own book) played with conviction by Bradley Cooper (who got the movie made). A Navy Seals sniper credited with 160 kills, Chris Kyle was a hero to the men he protected. To his wife (an excellent Sienna Miller) who raises his children, for quite a while he's just an absentee dad. Like Jeremy Renner's bomb sapper SFC William James in The Hurt Locker, Kyle, though more handsome, in a big, bearish way (Cooper got much beefed up to look like Chris Kyle) Kyle seems simply "not there" to his wife when at home between tours. His life is over there. His duty is to protect his comrades over there.

Chris Kyle's combat operations are dramatized with plenty of state of the art realism, but they're not as tense and suspenseful as SFC James's bomb sapping. A sniper's work is harder to make interesting. There's a detachment about it. That's the horror of it. And more than once, Eastwood shows Kyle drawing a bead on a young Iraqi boy (one of these sequences is shown twice). It's a nerve wracking and morally crushing job, but in action terms it's inert. Luckily, Kyle, now known as "Legend" for his deadly accuracy, joins a team that fights door to door, invading buildings and houses. (Urban street warfare between ravaged buildings is seen better, in Syria, in the documentary Return to Homs.) But a sniper at work just looks through his binocs and his sight and pulls the trigger. Not as remote as the kills executed in the Mideast by techs Stateside, still there is a disconnect. The convenient antidote is that Kyle has an enemy adversary. His tours become a duel with an ace Iraqi sharpshooter known as Mustapha (Sammy Sheik), who competed in the Olympics. Mustapha differs from "Legend" only in having an Arab-looking face and a different hat (Kyle wears a totemic beat up baseball cap for luck).

Eastwood would not be as good a director as he is if he'd simply made a jingoistic tract about a combat hero. The material, in any case, doesn't allow that. The Chris Kyle story is full of the facts of modern American Middle East warfare. There have been a lot of movies about it, from Jarhead to Restrepo. (Few films other than David O. Russell's Three Kings succeed in nailing the equally important satirical or political aspects.) This one takes the viewer, if briefly, for a look at a few actual veterans seriously damaged by action, and hints at PTSD. The story has a surprise, ironic ending that came just before Cooper got work going on this movie: Kyle leaves the house to spend time with another veteran he's "trying to help," and (end titles tell you) he got shot by him. This is only a hint at how much and how badly the wars have come home, but it's there, and this aspect seems to have been particularly important to Bradley Cooper.

Is the jingoistic aspect of "the most lethal sniper in U.S. history" just a rack on which Cooper can hang his hat of bad news about war? Were he and Eastwood at odds? But Cooper too had to have been deeply into the gung ho military aspects: he did his weight lifting and his pushups and his Navy Seals training simulations. Like Kathryn Bigelow, Clint Eastwood (and Bradley Cooper) seem utterly seduced by the glamour and excitement of modern U.S. warfare, even as they blend in the downsides. For some of us the glamour may be hard to see: this may seem just like extraordinarily hard and dangerous and damaging work in a cause that many of the veterans (including one of Kyle's closest buddies, as shown in a letter read at the latter's funeral) come to see as futile and cruel. The ugly, soulless side of war is shaped by the invented conflicts (attacking Afghanistan and Iraq as a response to 9/11) and the high tech methods of the fighting. If you want old fashioned human war drama, go back to World War II, as David Ayer did last year in his fine but underappreciated Fury. There is something crude about Bradley Cooper even before he got beefed up that cannot match Brad Pitt's charisma and nuance.

The ambiguity that appears at some point also begins to fade again when Kyle goes back for a fourth and final tour in Iraq and finally gets Mustapha. Before the operation is over, when it's not even sure Kyle isn't mortally wounded, he calls his wife on a satellite phone to shout that he can come back now. (Phone calls are another way of injecting drama into the isolated sniper life.) Of course his war's not over; it's never over. It goes on in his head watching a dead TV screen back home. It's only the doctor at the VA hospital who gives him and the movie an out by suggesting to him there are comrades right down the hall he can help save. That was the tougher job, in the end.

American Sniper, 132 mins. debuted at the AFI Fest in November 2014 with limited release on 25 December 2014. It was on some critics' ten best lists and received six Oscar nominations (including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing) with a Metacritic rating of 72%. US and UK wide release began 16 January 2015 (France 18 February).

Chris never comes out and states it plainly, but reading between the lines he might state the this movie isn't as good as those he mentions in his review and, therefore, this movie while perhaps good, isn't great. I would not dispute such a claim if he were to make it. Whether or not Bradley Cooper deserves an Oscar nomination is avoided by Chris.

Not as good? I don't know. Good but not great? I guess so. I am more interested not in rating the film but in looking at its ambiguities, which it's good enough to make clear and haunting. THE HURT LOCKER wrings more excitement out of the incidents its protagonist's more dramatizable job incurs, but AMERICAN SNIPER depicts the way warriors' psyche's are narrowed better and more fully. I personally like THREE KINGS better than either, but it's just an altogether different way of looking at recent war. I just forgot about the Oscar thing. I think Bradley Cooper does deserve nomination, but he's not the favorite. I think it's believed to be between Eddie Redmayne and Michael Keaton.

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Steve Carell, “Foxcatcher”
Bradley Cooper, “American Sniper”
Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Imitation Game”
Michael Keaton, “Birdman”
Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”

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Michael Moore tweeted that his Uncle was killed by a sniper in WWII, that snipers are cowards, that they don't believe in a fair fight.
The press ran with it, creating a fake war between Clint Eastwood and Mike.

It's that easy to get people fired up.

The word "coward" should be used sparingly. Wonder if Moore has even seen the movie. Chris Kyle, the sniper, is in as much danger as any of them, in the movie. And a courageous person.

I heard that Michael Moore later indicated that he referred to snipers that have shot at local law enforcement personnel in the United States.

Moore hasn't seen the movie, and that was his point- they linked him to eastwood with no proof.

I have mixed feelings about military snipers. We just had one commit suicide here in Canada on a base, last week. (Jessie Tate, a veteran of Afghanistan). Our Minister of Veterans Affairs Julian Fantino was (QUIETLY) replaced in early January. Tate's mother was on the radio tonight sobbing that her son had zero support from anyone on the base.

It's not proper to equate a Navy Seals sharpshooter, protecting his fellow soldiers from enemy missiles and bombs and sharpshooters, with the men who shot Martin Luther King, or killed Kennedy. Michael Moore did not -- exactly -- do that, though when he uses the word "sniper," it does not describe someone he likes. His remarks on Twitter about snipers were not made in reference to Clint's film or Chris Kyle. He was referring initially to a Japanese sniper who killed his uncle in WWII. Confusion of issues led to many responses from the internet's chattering masses and trolls. Then in response Moore posted a long Facebook statement (see below). He saw American Sniper and had things to say about it, mostly favorable. He points out "there is anti-war sentiment expressed in the movie." However, he makes clear in subsequent tweets that the fundamental issue to him is the wrongness of the Iraq war, where Chris Kyle fought, and which he thinks the movie confuses with Vietnam. (This is not explained.) He also tweeted, I guess referring to an Iraqi man: "But if you're on the roof of your home defending it from invaders who've come 7K miles, you are not a sniper, u are brave, u are a neighbor."

Note: the difference between the admiring or favorable word "sharpshooter" and the negative or pejorative word "sniper." This seems to be lost in common parlance today, and in the movie dialogue. But Clint Eastwood likely wants to tweak awareness of the word's -- and the activity's -- negative connotations by titling his movie American Sniper, not American Sharpshooter.

Here is what Michael Moore said on Facebook on January 18:

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Lots of talk about snipers this weekend (the holiday weekend of a great man, killed by a sniper), so I thought I'd weigh in with what I was raised to believe about snipers. My dad was in the First Marine Division in the South Pacific in World War II. His brother, my uncle, Lawrence Moore, was an Army paratrooper and was killed by a Japanese sniper 70 years ago next month. My dad always said, "Snipers are cowards. They don't believe in a fair fight. Like someone coming up from behind you and coldcocking you. Just isn't right. It's cowardly to shoot a person in the back. Only a coward will shoot someone who can't shoot back."
So I sent out this tweet today:
https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/556914094406926336
And then I sent this:
https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/556988226486169600
But Deadline Hollwood and the Hollywood Reporter turned that into stories about how I don't like Clint Eastwood's new film, "American Sniper." I didn't say a word about "American Sniper" in my tweets.
But here's what Deadline Hollywood posted (note how they changed "snipers" to "shooters" in their headline):
http://deadline.com/…/michael-moore-...oscars…/
Hollywood Reporter has since corrected their story:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/…/m...sts-ame…
[NOTE: BOTH OF THESE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER TEXTS HAVE BEEN REMOVED.]
If they wanted to know my opinion of "American Sniper" (and I have one), why not ask me?
So here's what I think about "American Sniper":
Awesome performance from Bradley Cooper. One of the best of the year. Great editing. Costumes, hair, makeup superb!
Oh... and too bad Clint gets Vietnam and Iraq confused in his storytelling. And that he has his characters calling Iraqis "savages" throughout the film. But there is also anti-war sentiment expressed in the movie. And there's a touching ending as the main character is remembered after being gunned down by a fellow American vet with PTSD who was given a gun at a gun range back home in Texas -- and then used it to kill the man who called himself the 'America Sniper'.
Also, best movie trailer and TV ads of the year.
Most of us were taught the story of Jesse James and that the scoundrel wasn't James (who was a criminal who killed people) but rather the sniper who shot him in the back. I think most Americans don't think snipers are heroes.
Hopefully not on this weekend when we remember that man in Memphis, Tennessee, who was killed by a sniper's bullet.

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Eastwood's movie shows ambiguity and complexity despite coming from a right-wing pro-war position. Conservative Clint is influenced by liberal Hollywood. Chris Kyle is a hero. He's a stone-faced lousy husband and father. He's a good father, a faithful husband. He's a cold killer. He's a brave soldier. He's a sneaky "cowardly" sniper. He's a crack shot, a virtuoso with a rifle. He's a monster of war who kills little Iraqi children who can't even see him. He protects his fellow soldiers from enemy missiles.

If anyone is a coward who kills somebody who can't see him in combat, then wars, especially modern ones, are very much fought by a gang of cowards.

While I feel the movie itself was over-rated, there was something that either Eastwood as a director or Bradley Cooper as an actor did very well. Bradley's performance over the duration of the movie and his character's transformation brought home in a very striking way, the psychological impact of war, and more specifically, a sniper. As a clinical social worker, I found Cooper's character fascinating and the post-traumatic stress features compelling. Bradley's performance was intense. Since I haven't seen most of the other best actor nominee's performances it's hard for me to compare, though Michael Keaton's Birdman was admittedly different, standing out in its depiction of film characters.

BRAVO CHRIS.

What can I add to that?
Tabuno- thank you as well for your thoughts. I think is one I have to see. Clint is an artist, and he puts serious effort into his films. I'm inclined to like military films, topical ones, as this one seems to be. But I do have an aversion to films like Zero Dark Thirty or The Hurt Locker. Even last year's Lone Survivor has slipped in my appreciation for it. I was really enthusiastic about it when I first saw it but now I know it was padded from the real story.

What are you feelings about We Were Soldiers (2002) about American military action in their supposedly first major battle in Vietnam?

We Were Soldiers was excellent. One of the best war films ever made. Same with Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan.

I never saw We Were Soldiers and was unaware of it, but I see that it's of interest. As for Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down, there are serious problems with both as there are with Lone Survivor, even though both are considerably more impressive than the latter. See my review of Black Hawk Down. I called it "One of the most impressive bad war movies ever made." A war move must be pro-war or anti-war. The interest and intelligence of American Sniper's that it's consciously both.

Jonathan Rosenbaum on Saving Private Ryan ("Cutting Heroes Down to Size [SMALL SOLDIERS & SAVING PRIVATE RYAN]
Posted July 24, 1998"):

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Steven Spielberg’s 1998 exercise in Oscar-mongering is a compilation of effects and impressions from all the war movies he’s ever seen, decked out with precise instructions about what to think in Robert Rodat’s script and how to feel in John Williams’s hokey music. There’s something here for everybody — war is hell (Sam Fuller), war is father figures (Oliver Stone), war is absurd (David Lean, Stanley Kubrick), war is necessary (John Ford), war is surreal (Francis Coppola), war is exciting (Robert Aldrich), war is upsetting (all of the preceding and Lewis Milestone), war is uplifting (ditto) — and nothing that suggests an independent vision, unless you count seeing more limbs blown off than usual (the visceral opening sequence, showing Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944) or someone getting graphically shot underwater. The story is about a squad trying to find and send home a private whose three older brothers have already been killed in World War II; it’s a mission ordered by General George C. Marshall (backed by the authority of Abraham Lincoln, who’s backed in turn by Spielberg) and executed by Tom Hanks, a captain named John instead of Joe. It has a few pretty good action moments (including a climax straight out of the Indiana Jones trilogy), a lot of spilled guts, a few moments of drama that don’t seem phony or hollow, some fairly strained period ambiance, and a bit of sentimental morphing that reminds me of Forrest Gump; it also lasts the better part of three hours. With Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Jeremy Davies, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, and Barry Pepper. R. (JR)

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Great stuff- Rosenbaum got it right.

Saving Private Ryan is mainly praised nowadays for it's blistering opening sequence. The movie kind of falls apart after that, basically jingoistic non-reality wrapped up as authentic WWII action. I've seen it countless times and some scenes make me cringe- like the one where they get the wrong private Ryan, telling him his brothers are all dead- wow was that hokey.
Band of Brothers is much better to me and more informative than Spielberg's "Oscar-mongering". He produced it, so it has the benefit of Steven's production teams. I'm guessing the series The Pacific is just as good. (I haven't seen it).

The most impressive part of American Sniper seemed to be how Chris Kyle was portrayed and the transformation as a man into something tragic in its impact on his character and his struggle with his marriage, something I haven't see effectively emphasized in other war movies.

Yeah, I think you're right, though THE HURT LOCKER emphasizes how its protag is completely lost away from the combat zone too. And THE HURT LOCKER is a better film, a dazzling actioner and celebration of a war zone technician who's a genius. He has a wife and a young son at home and he can't even find anything to say to them when he calls. It's the same idea. There have been depictions of PTSD. Even Boorman's new QUEEN AND COUNTRY set in 1952 deals with it, and that is apparently the year when the concept clearly emerged, as the film shows.

A sniper from the 75th Rangers was on AM radio the other night- Nick Irving "The Reaper"- he's one of the few black snipers, and he's written a book on his experiences in combat as a sniper. He explained that the word "sniper" is an issue. It implies that there's some guy far away randomly killing people. He described the "human" aspects of his job and how he goes about "taking a life". He also suffered serious PTSD which he has since recovered from. He described how he rarely shot a target in the head, that it was always center-of-mass (upper body)and that each man he killed (he never killed a female) were known targets, i.e. that they always knew who they were after. He said he was always on a rooftop, with his spotter, and always did his sniping under cover of night. He used a .50 caliber sniper rifle, and he said being a sniper has it's risks. He got PTSD from watching his best friend get killed immediately after providing cover for him and his spotter to get out of their position, which was under siege, and he was running out of ammo. Apparently Chechnians were paid by the Taliban to hunt American troops, and one Chechnian sniper was "really good", that he'd been around since the Soviet days, and was picking off US troops one by one, and almost got him. He said it was the only time he felt "really really small" out there.

He also mentioned that the 75th Rangers have the most confirmed kills in the Afghan conflict, a fact most serving in the US military don't even know. Nick is out of the forces now, and he said it was weird to adjust to a civvie lifestyle (I know what that's about). He said being in war and then shopping for salad at Wal-Mart was a strange change. He lives in New York now, and he called the radio station while the snow was pounding "sideways".

So there's a wee bit of insight into snipers and what they do. I'l see this movie this week and tell you guys what I thought.

I will not be seeing this movie. I have since learned that Chris Kyle is a liar, that his story may be just as padded as Marcus Luttrell's was. Kyle slandered and defamed Jesse Ventura, a man who I hold in very high esteem. Jesse sued his ass, and was awarded a million-dollar settlement for Kyle's lies.

That's all I needed to hear.

Having won against Kyle (and since Kyle's murder, his widow, who's contesting the decision), Ventura has since sued the publisher of his book for a similar amount.I understand your reaction, and Ventura seems to be in the right, but your decision not to see AMERICAN SNIPER seems to show a certain lack of cinematic curiosity. Good films have been made about bad people -- but is Chris Kyle a bad person? Should his widow be saddled with a bill for $1.84 million? (Maybe from the book and movie royalties she can afford it.) hatever the truth or implications of this incident, to which there is no reference in it, AMERICAN SNIPER is, I feel, still a movie well worth seeing.

See Washington Post:

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A general search of the terms "Chris Kyle" and "Jesse Ventura" on Twitter shows that reaction is overwhelmingly in Kyle’s family’s favor.

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P.s. If you are against Chris Kyle and think him and therefore the film from his book not worth publicity, your best decision would have been to say nothing here or anywhere. This only promotes the film, like all controversity (cp. Mel Gibson).

I was under the impression (like a lot of people) that Kyle was a hero. Heroes don't make up stories about fellow Navy Seals. Jesse has been ostracized from the Navy SEAL community due to the lies of a punk. I only learned yesterday about what Kyle did to Jesse's reputation. I have no sympathy for his widow. She's set for life. And Jessie says he has no regrets over suing him. He said all he wanted was a retraction and apology from Chris Kyle. True to being a punk, he refused. Jessie had no choice but to sue his ass.

Whether I comment on this movie or not the controversy will flow. Eastwood apparently threatened to kill Michael Moore!
What's that about?
Clint is a film artist, but he's also a crusty old right-wing shill.

Your libelous epithet about Clint does not build confidence in your judgment, and your dismissal of the widow shows bad manners. Moreover, the interest of the film is precisely that Clint is not so simple at all, that, as Michael Moore said "there is also anti-war sentiment expressed in the movie." It is not simple black and white stuff you'd like to make it. I am puzzled over where Bradley Cooper stands (see my review). And it's not an idealized picture of Kyle. See what tabuno says above:

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Impact of War on Soldiers
The most impressive part of American Sniper seemed to be how Chris Kyle was portrayed and the transformation as a man into something tragic in its impact on his character and his struggle with his marriage, something I haven't see effectively emphasized in other war movies.

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Nothing libelous about telling the truth. Who cares about my judgement? I can show empathy when required, but Chris Kyle (and his widow) asked for everything they got. First by writing the book, then by making the movie. Clint should state his aims, shouldn't he? What is he saying about Chris Kyle? It seems to me he's made an "Easy Rider" movie, and Clint is no Dennis Hopper.

"Easy Rider" in that the "hero" protagonist gets cut down tragically, and we leave the theatre reflecting on it.

It's true- Moore confirmed it- Clint Eastwood said in 2005 (to a big crowd with Mike in it no less) he would kill Mike if he ever tried to interview him. "I MEAN IT!"- Clint actually said that. He said he would kill Mike.

I'll say it again: Clint is a crusty old right-wing shill. And I will never watch one of his films again.
That's all it took- to threaten to kill a better American Hero than Chris fucking Kyle.

Chris, have you read that Chris Kyle was sniping American citizens from the roof of the Superdome in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?

How the fuck is Chris Kyle a "Hero"?
Did Clint put that in his movie? Sniping people in New Orleans?

If I was a fully trained combat vet sniper and my country told me to go on the roof of a stadium in the aftermath of a hurricane and kill my fellow citizens,

I WOULD QUIT AND TELL THE FUCKERS TO GET FUCKING BENT!!!!!
Jesus, no wonder there's controversy here.
People can't see misplaced glory when it's staring them in the fucking eyeballs.

Maybe he's a hero; maybe he's not. The movie lets you decide. It's more complex than you realize. I think you should lay off the internat chatter and go see the movie. AMERICAN SNIPER is an interesting film, well made, well acted, thought provoking, and well worth seeing. To propagandize against it by attacking its subject through hearsay, without ever seeing the it, seems pointless in itself and and not germane to a thread about the film. There are valid criticisms of the AMERICAN SNNIPER, its protagonist and its treatment of the Iraq War, for sure. But I'd like to see you discuss them in relation to AMERICAN SNIPER after having seen it. Kyle said he did these things. He didn't do them. Clearly he was nuts. Vulture calls Kyle "a fabulist." Another howler is his claim to have found chemical weapons in Iraq that came from France and Germany; and that war protesters called him a "baby killer."

From NPR:

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Another reason for the backlash against American Sniper is the fantastical stories Kyle told about himself after he left the Navy. He said he killed two men who tried to carjack him in Texas. He said he went to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and shot people from the roof of the Superdome. On the radio Opie & Anthony Show, he claimed to have punched former Minnesota governor (and Navy veteran) Jesse Ventura at a bar after Ventura supposedly made disparaging remarks about soldiers.

It never happened, and Ventura won a defamation suit against Kyle. The other stories have also never been proved. Actor and producer Bradley Cooper has said that American Sniper is a "character study," but there's no mention of this part of Kyle's character in the movie.

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The article goes on to criticize the film for leaving this wild talk by Kyle out, obviously. If I were to write my review now, I'd point to these omissions and emphasize that Kyle's post-combat behavior was more crazy than AMERICAN SNIPER shows. But I don't see the worth of impugning the film purely on the basis of an ad hominem attack on Kyle. Distinguish between him and the character in the film. Besides, surely you can make a good movie about a questionable person? Surely a movie "based on true events" (as they so often are lately) always leaves out a lot of the facts?

I understand what you are saying, that I should see the movie before going off on it, but the evidence of why not to see it is overwhelming. I hate people who go off on movies without seeing them too, but Clint Eastwood has become persona non grata to me.
Chris Kyle has no integrity. Heroes don't go around fabricating things they did, slandering established military heroes like Jesse Ventura. You get your ass kicked for that shit. I was a soldier in the PPCLI once upon a time. If I went around spreading lies and bullshit like Chris Kyle did, someone would come and visit me and make sure I checked and handled my mouth.


Steven Spielberg was attached to this before Eastwood. Apparently Spielberg wanted to emphasize the fight between Kyle and another enemy sniper. Face it Chris- this is another padded USA military movie in the same vein as Lone Survivor. I can give it up for these kinds of films, but it's getting harder and harder to do so. Eastwood won't get a dime from me ever again.

There's another serious problem with this film. Even though it is a dramatization, verbal and physical threats have increased against Muslims. Arabs wrote a formal letter to it's star, Bradley Cooper about it but he has yet to respond. Clint is sowing the seeds of hatred here, it seems. Arabs have complained about how they've been stereotyped from their portrayal in American Sniper. A theatre in Baghdad has been threatened with fines from the government if they show the film. The theatre owner says people want to see the film, and if he doesn't show it he loses money.

So am I to believe that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences encourages leaving out seriously germane details regarding a subject's life in a movie if it's "well made"?

You say you understand but you do not understand. You are grasping at straws. Forgot the chatter about it and see it. Or stop talking. You add nothing.
The New Yorker's Goings on About Town short review:

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Clint Eastwood’s new film is a devastating pro-war movie and a devastating antiwar movie, a sombre celebration of a warrior’s happiness and a sorrowful lament over a warrior’s alienation and misery. Eastwood, working with the screenwriter Jason Hall, has adapted the 2012 best-seller by the Navy SEAL sharpshooter Chris Kyle, who is played here by Bradley Cooper. The film is devoted to Kyle’s life as a son, husband, father, and, most of all, righteous assassin—a man always sure he is defending his country in Iraq against what he calls “savages.” Perched on a rooftop in Ramadi or Sadr City, he’s methodical and imperturbable, and he hardly ever misses. For the role of Kyle, Cooper got all beefed up—from the looks of it, by beer as much as by iron (it’s intentionally not a movie-star body). With his brothers in the field, Kyle is convivial, profane, and funny; at home with his loving wife (played by Sienna Miller, who’s excellent), he’s increasingly withdrawn, dead-eyed, enraptured only by the cinema of war that’s playing in his mind. As Kyle and his men rampage through the rubbled Iraqi cities, the camera records exactly what’s needed to dramatize a given event and nothing more. There’s no waste, never a moment’s loss of concentration, definition, or speed; the atmosphere of the cities, and life on the streets, gets packed into the purposeful action shots. The cinematography is by Tom Stern.

—David Denby

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Even if I saw it my opinion wouldn't change. I think I add a lot, without even seeing it. lol

How can a movie be "devastating pro-war" and "devastating anti-war" at the same time? Don't they cancel each other out?

They don't cancel each other out, they show complexity. That's the interest of the film. It is certainly pro war by the implication of its format but as I quoted Michael Moore saying (see above)"there is also anti-war sentiment expressed in the movie." I quoted Denby's thumbnail review based on his full one earlier for the dramatic way it states the movie's complexity.

I had overlooked Armond White's (30 Dec.) review, where he discusses the movie sympathetically but critically from his now open conservative and Christian stance that he adopts for his weekly pieces for National Review. He notes the cutting away of the title, contrasts Cooper here with the bullish, boorish role of Channing Tatum in FOXCATCHER, calls Kyle as depicted a "working class hero," the movie as ambivalent, not anti-American.

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Compare Cooper’s Star Wars Storm Trooper strut to Channing Tatum’s oafish gorilla step in Foxcatcher and you have the visible difference between an ambivalent American movie and an anti-American one. Cooper romanticizes the guileless, unsophisticated virtues of cowboys, jocks and working men while Tatum (and a porky Mark Ruffalo, both under the smug guidance of politically decadent Bennett Miller) appeals to Blue State cynicism.

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You don't get such views intelligently expressed (or expressed at all) elsewhere.

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Too much of American Sniper is merely conventional, while Cooper, bulked up like an Oscar stunt, has gone past it to something genuine.

American Sniper’s got that Eastwood problem: terse but banal. It covers up lack of commitment with Eastwood’s typical middle-of-the-road Hollywood Conserva-liberal fudging on issues of patriotism and war fatigue.

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White as his contrarian, smart best. Recommended for a fresh viewpoint.

American Sniper didn't make my top ten list, but not for all the controversy. In fact, what I was most impressed about the movie was its character study element. I thought Clint Eastwood presented the psychological transformation of a solider in war very well. I was reminded about how Natalie Portman's performance in Black Swan (2010).

A germane link:

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/26/amer...zergnet_382328