American Sniper

This film has generated a lot of controversy due to its subject matter of recounting real life sniper Chris Kyle’s tours in Iraq. American Sniper portrays Kyle as a patriotic and brave soldier who fights to protect his fellow men both on the field and after as both seek to recover from PTSD. This portrayal has led some to claim the film glorifies Kyle and that in actuality he was nothing more than a murderer. For the sake of this review I am not concerned with what the real Chris Kyle was like, but rather what to make of his portrayal in this film and the controversy surrounding what is actually shown.

Controversy

One of the first sources of controversy concerning the film itself is that this film is unfair in its characterization of Muslims and the Muslim faith. One scene in particular that is labelled Islamophobic depicts a child and woman who are both shot by Kyle while they are trying to blow up a tank. What concerns me about the characterization of this scene and the movie as a whole as Islamophobic is that the film makes clear in the scene where Kyle and a group of marines come across a Muslim man and his family in their house that all of the civilians are supposed to have left the city. This should have been an indication to the audience that the Muslims depicted in this film are not a representation of the Muslim population as a whole, but are restricted to only the radical terrorists who remained behind to attack US troops. Since real Muslims do not consider these people to be a part of the Muslim faith there is no reason for them to take issue with the depiction of these radicals as monsters like “The Butcher” who takes a drill to a child’s head. The fact that the film also showed an innocent Muslim family that was willing to help the US also shows that the portrayal of Muslims in this film was not slanderous as some claim. Eastwood’s intention was to make this movie as realistic as possible and that includes depicting radical extremists as they really act. People should be offended by what these groups do, not by Eastwood’s willingness to accurately portray them.

A second source of controversy centers on the depiction of Kyle as a hero. Some, like the ever corpulent Michael Moore, have since called the real Kyle and his portrayal in the film “a murderer” because he was a sniper. Here again the focus of outrage and offense is misguided. Focusing just on the character of Kyle, to label him a murder is as ridiculous as calling Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, or Gandalf murderers. Have we as a society sunk to such depths of self-loathing that the heroes who kill our enemies are vilified for their actions? The real focus of outrage in this film should instead be directed at two areas: the radicals who kill innocent civilians and the state of our veterans who return home and suffer PTSD. The real controversy should be over why more isn’t being done to end these two threats.

Acting

Bradley Cooper IS Chris Kyle. This film should start with a video of Chris Kyle speaking if only so that the audience can appreciate how accurate Cooper’s portrayal of Kyle was. Cooper put on more than 40 lbs. to look like Kyle and he studied his mannerisms in order to act like him. The end result was a performance that left Chris Kyle’s mother saying she saw bits of her son in Cooper’s portrayal. I can think of no higher praise for an actor. Cooper is almost unrecognizable in this role compared to his roles in Limitless, the Hangover, or American Hustle where he plays relatively the same suave pretty boy, while here he is a patriotic, soft spoken, Texas cowboy. Cooper’s performance is the centerpiece of this film and he delivers a masterful performance that might have won him an Oscar in a less competitive year.

Sienna Miller’s performance as Taya Kyle is much less impressive. While Miller does look extraordinarily similar to Taya without having to put on 40 lbs. her performance in this film is not nearly as entertaining. Perhaps the role of a worried and stressed out wife of a solider is inherently unenjoyable to watch, but Miller seems to exacerbate this unpleasantness. Her performance does not contribute much at all to this film and what is probably intended as anxious worry instead comes off as selfish and annoying. It certainly must be difficult for the wife of a soldier to go through the fear of losing her husband and not knowing what might happen to him and in seeing such worry the audience should feel sympathy for her. Watching Miller’s phone calls with Kyle and her insistent whining about how she couldn’t take his being overseas any more felt more like watching a soap opera than an Eastwood film. Admittedly, part of this whining could just be the nature of the role or what Eastwood wanted from Miller, but without that knowledge I must evaluate her for the performance she gave and overall I found the notion of a wife complaining about how lonely she felt while her husband is risking his life abroad to be an unnecessary side story that at times made the film feel disjointed.

Directing

Eastwood’s primary vision for this film, at the insistence of Chris Kyle’s father, was to create as accurate a depiction of Chris Kyle as possible in honor of his military. Eastwood succeeded in achieving this goal. He gave us the Chris Kyle that Kyle’s family, friends, and documentaries with Kyle all remember. While one could argue Cooper’s portrayal was void of any negative characteristics, biopics like this do not necessarily warrant negative attributes of their subject just for the sake of being “well rounded.” The lack of any negative side of Kyle was appropriate here just the movie Lincoln did not go over his suspension of habeas corpus or his statements that Blacks would be happiest being sent back to Africa. Perhaps it is a valid criticism to say that not raising the controversial side of such figures in history glorifies them in an unrealistic manner, but such is the nature of biopics in general and I cannot fault Eastwood for his decision not to include critiques of Kyle in a movie meant to honor his legacy. One could also argue that the strain Kyle’s multiple tours placed on his wife and family back home was a sufficient enough conflict of character to hush any who might claim this movie deified him. American Sniper shows that Chris Kyle was not perfect and had to make decisions at the expense of his family’s happiness.

One area of directing which I do take issue with in this film I have previously touched on. I thought there were too many scenes of Kyle at home and how unhappy his tours were making Taya. The first scene sufficiently communicated the tension and unhappiness of Taya to the audience. Subsequent scenes, with the exception of maybe one close to the end of his tours to show how it had progressed, were unnecessary and broke up the flow of the movie. Since this was a movie about Chris Kyle the soldier and less about Chris Kyle the husband, I would have preferred fewer scenes with Kyle on the phone with his wife, at home with his wife, his wife having their child, etc.

One area where Eastwood succeeded as a director in this film, apart from his portrayal of Kyle, was in creating the realism of each combat scene in the movie. The scenes with the mother and child trying to attack the tank, the child with the RPG, and the Butcher drilling a child’s head were all difficult to watch but they also provided the audience with insight into the mind of a US sniper. Watching these scenes through Kyle’s scope made you feel the same intimacy a sniper feels with his targets as well as the conflict a sniper feels when trying to decide whether or not his target is a threat. Watching the kid pick up the RPG it felt like the whole audience was pleading, along with Kyle, for the kid to put it down; you didn’t just want him to, in a powerful, gut-wrenching way you needed him to. There are several of these scenes like this that pull an audience into the movie to the extent that they feel a part of it and they are a mark of Eastwood’s skills as a director.

Story

Though some have criticized American Sniper for giving too much attention to Mustafa when in actuality he was a very minor part of Chris Kyle’s tours, I agree with this decision. It would have been an impossible task to have shown all 160 of Chris Kyle’s confirmed kills (out of his 255 probable kills) and would have made for far too dark of a movie. By narrowing the story of Kyle’s tours to one particular sniper the screenwriter was able to showcase Kyle’s talent without having to repeatedly show us kill after kill. By making the story more about Kyle than about particular missions or events, the audience was able to hone in on Cooper’s performance and to get a more detailed insight into what it’s like for a soldier to battle PTSD both on the frontlines and at home.

In general I thought the story was very well done. Showing us Kyle at a young age and before he became a Seal, provided the audience with a helpful understanding of his character without the distractions of fight scenes. It is important for the audience that his character have a solid foundation initially so that we can see how he develops as a result of PTSD. The overall pacing of the story was well done and other than a few scenes of Miller, no scene seemed unnecessary. It would have been very easy for this movie to have gone overboard with fight scenes and sniper shots, but it did not and as a result the impact of each scene was more meaningful. Not until the end did we really see a significant firefight and to have had one before then would have detracted from the tension of this scene. It is also worth mentioning that I heaved a sigh of relief when it became clear that they were not going to show Kyle’s death and I applaud American Sniper for not doing so. Seeing Kyle killed on screen, even in a reenactment, would have been unnecessary and honestly not as powerful as the more subtle decision to show his killer climbing into the truck with him. The focus on Kyle’s role as someone who died helping veterans with PTSD was a classy touch by Eastwood and a powerful reminder of the type of person Chris Kyle was.

Conclusion:

Grade: WRAP: 80%

Even though some choppy scenes and a subpar performance by Sienna Miller kept this movie from being great, the level of absolute silence I experienced in the theatre as the credits began to roll is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced and is a testament to how impactful this movie was. Most of the audience was moved to tears at having witnessed the story of a real-life American duty who sacrificed so much for all of us. For political reasons and misguided views of Chris Kyle as a person this movie will probably always be controversial and not receive the full recognition it deserves, but for all the lives Chris Kyle saved, for all the veterans with PTSD he helped, and for all the sacrifices he made as a navy seal, this was a movie that needed to be made.