American Sniper

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Created on Monday, 12 January 2015 13:12

Written by KTP

American Sniper:  Bradley Cooper plays a badass and is actually believable.

If you are into war films at all, you need to stop what you are doing right now and watch this film by whatever means necessary. RIGHT. NOW. I say this now, but will explain towards the end, this is a very important and very relevant film. It should be talked about and discussed by our society that may seem apathetic and oblivious to a war that was not that far away in time. While there may be several controversial aspects about the real life Chris Kyle, the film takes a look at a man after all the bullets fly pass and the cliches run their course. It is a troubling look at a man, after all the bravado is stripped away, that struggles to deal with his acceptance of (and by) a world that may not be ready to understand.

Bradley nails this role.

American Sniper is based on Chris Kyle, a shit kicking Texan who is looking for something more to do with his life and enlists with the Navy to become a SEAL. The story follows his military career with multiple tours in Iraq, as well as hime struggling to deal with family life. Through it all, we start to see a man dealing with the effects of PSTD as it slowly tries to overtake him.

In what is probably one of the most important war movies due to a focus on PTSD released in the past few years, I have one minor problems with it. The first is how they tried to create a villain with the Iraqi sniper. It’s stupid and pointless for them to try seeing as war can be it’s own villain with its own terms. I guess they were trying to showcase Kyle’s talents aligned with the Iraqi sniper, but it just feels silly. I heard Spielberg was going to run with this idea at the forefront so we should all be thankful that Eastwood got to helm this film.

This scene hit too many buttons. A damn fine portrayal of a man coming to terms with his war experiences.

This film is essentially two movies and one should have been longer than the other. The first is the obvious, flag waving, action flick with our hero doing badass war movie shit. It is very well done and tense in this regard. The other is a little more subtle and deals with the man after the curtain drops on those action scenes who has to adjust to a normal family life. We see hints of it when he is seemingly thrust violently back into reserved talks with his wife or twitches after hearing loud noises in an auto garage. It's this almost secondary film that needs to be talked about more and discussed in polite dinner table conversations. While the films champions his record as a SEAL sniper (and rightly so), the hero to me is the man who dealt with his PTSD and helped others do the same.