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Film "American Sniper" an excellent war story

by sam

Director Clint Eastwood's new movie "American Sniper" is a craftsman's work of cinema art, based on a Navy SEAL's life, with a fine cast headed by Bradley Cooper as Kris Kyle, the sniper of the title. Eastwood, who is 84, has lost none of his fine touch in melding scenes of war and life at home into a smoothly flowing story --- not too much war, not too much home. Cooper is matched by Sienna Miller, wife whom he picked up in a bar (and who makes a drunk scene charming. Early scenes show Kris and his brother being taught hunting and with advice from the father about being a sheep or a sheepdog or a wolf. No surprise in what the father suggests.

Kyle is triggered to join the Navy by the 9/11 disaster and is touted to become a SEAL, the super-tough sailors.

The opening scenes show the demanding scenes of how one becomes a SEAL and that first half hour is pretty brutal (throwing darts at a target on a sailor's back ---ouch!). He shows skill on the firing range and is made a sniper

Kris' first tour of Iraq is brutal as he begins by having to decide if a woman and young boy are fair sniper targets, they are and he saves troops from a bomb.

Much of the first tour is getting viewers accustomed to the decisions Kris must make.

In modern warfare, troops are never far from home with cell phones on hand, and in the first tour Kris' pregnant wife talks to him during a battle that she can hear. Tours two, three and four are more battles with the emergence of a terrorist sniper; the two engage in a duel of sniping.

As Kris returns from each tour he becomes more distant, moody, difficult. After the fourth he decides he has done enough and becomes close with his family.

The end of the film reports on Kris' death at the hands of a disturbed vet at a firing range and views of his funeral in a football stadium followed by scenes of Americans honoring him.

The is filmmaking at its best. Direction is unobtrusive but obviously skilled. The cast is near perfect with Cooper clearly made for the role. Editing is tight and smart and the battle scenes fluid and tense. There's even a "fog of war" battle scene of a dust storm confusing all.

Controversy about the movie includes the question is it a pro- or anti-war movie. It seems to me to be both, with the ant-i winning the verdict. Some comments about the role of a sniper --- hero or killer. And there is a touch of jingoism, to be expected perhaps in such a film. The morality of snipers as judge and jury rules here as it does in drone attacks.a

But no clear answers to these questions. War is rarely good but It's a personal judgment here.

Directed by

Clint Eastwood

Produced by

Clint Eastwood

Robert Lorenz

Andrew Lazar

Bradley Cooper

Peter Morgan

Written by

Jason Hall

Based on