Whaddaya know? Snipers can be badasses. Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) not only rewrote the book on modern sharpshooting, but given his SEAL background, he flat-out refused the automatic safety of distance when others were risking themselves. American Sniper is a biopic and for the time being, I’m going to buy into it because I have no reason to believe otherwise. Kyle was credited for an unbelievable 160 confirmed kills during his Iraq tours. Some of that feels like exaggeration, but this is certainly a case where I’d like to believe the lie because of the portrayal of the hero.
We open on Kyle “popping his cherry” in Iraq. Boy, I hate that metaphor, especially when it describes your first blood spilled. And this one is a doozy – a kid no older than eight with a hand grenade ready to take out marines. And when Kyle makes sure the kid is no longer in play, mom takes up the onus, picking up the hand grenade to finish the task and Chris has to shoot her as well. Wolves come in all forms, we learn.
The beginning and end of the scene is interrupted by childhood flashback. Over dinner, Dad (Ben Reed) spells out the film’s theme and metaphor in one enormous over-simplification. There are three types of people in the world: sheep (the good people who see no evil), wolves (those who seek to harm the sheep), and sheepdogs (the protectors of the sheep). This is a big moment; don’t miss it as young Chris takes this to heart, silently vowing to be the greatest sheepdog the world has ever known. I have no doubt this moment stirs the audience hawks, even though, or perhaps exactly because, this philosophy naturally lends itself to paranoia and bigotry. In the context of our very aggressive national foreign policy, I have two big problems with the sheepdog metaphor: 1) Sheepdogs don’t hunt wolves. 2) The actions of real sheepdogs don’t naturally create more wolves.
American Sniper jumps a bit, first showing us the killer Chris becomes and then returning to the key moments in his life time. Spurred by 9/11, Chris finally has focus for his sheepdoggery. I thought it a tad irresponsible for Clint Eastwood never in Chris Kyle’s four tours to mention that Iraq had no part in 9/11, but hey, sometimes Eastwood is brilliant and sometimes he interviews an empty chair.
In Iraq, Chris slowly develops a nemesis in the form of a Syrian Olympic sharpshooter named Mustafa (Sammy Sheik). The duel between these two becomes more-and-more the focus of the war footage as the film progresses which makes for a much more personalized combat than we’d bargained for – so score one for Eastwood here (even though the rivalry resolution is well beyond ridiculous).
An American Sniper progresses, it is clear to me this film is not the pro-war hawkish love letter suggested by the sheepdog metaphor,
but much more an intense character study of a man who only knows how to be a sheepdog. When Chris returns home, he’s clearly out of sorts; it’s hard for him to relate and his mind seems elsewhere, like a sheepdog without a flock. He cannot be convinced to transfer his protective instincts to his immediate family which frustrates no end his wife Taya (Sienna Miller).
The scenes between tours, btw, are the weakest in the film and it’s not just because of Sienna Miller’s one-note acting. They introduce loose plot points like Chris’ resting BP of 170/110 (um, that’s real bad); they also introduce children, who are treated in this film much more like props than people. In fact, all the babies are props, and it’s obvious, as is the fake belly Miller sports during the sonogram. It makes it extremely difficult to concentrate on the development of Chris Kyle’s inability to relate to the child he’s holding when he’s not actually holding a child.
Bottom line is the character study gets an A, the war footage gets a B and the metaphor gets a C-, but not because it is an inappropriate description of Chris.
A sniper who’s one in a million
Finds Iraq as the site for his thrillin’
Hero on our side
Spurs national pride
Even more if we’d picked the right villain
Rated R, 132 Minutes
D: Clint Eastwood
W: Jason Hall
Genre: War is cool
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Wolves, er, hawks, I definitely mean hawks, not wolves.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Pacificists
