American Sniper: Movie Review

Shoot first, ask questions never.

HIRED GUN: Bradley Cooper takes aim.

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) lies with his gun on a rooftop in Iraq. In his sights is a boy holding a grenade, approaching American troops. It's up to him: kill a child or see his friends slaughtered. Before he decides, director Clint Eastwood cuts away to Kyle as a child, hunting with his father.

The real-life Chris Kyle killed more than 250 people as an "overwatch" sniper—he sat on roofs and shot people who posed threats to U.S. troops. In February 2013, at a gun range in his home state of Texas, a Marine with PTSD—whom Kyle was trying to help rehabilitate—shot and killed him. American Sniper provides a chance to explore the man behind these facts, starting with Kyle's childhood, moving to the anger and patriotism that drove him from being a reckless rodeo rider to a Navy SEAL, and finally exploring the struggles of being a married man serving abroad. But Eastwood is uninterested in nuance, and the result is an irresponsible movie that steamrolls its themes: Military training is hard. Americans are righteous. Iraqis are bad. Kyle is very good at shooting. 

As Kyle, Cooper keeps a constant stiff upper lip. He shrugs off other soldiers' compliments in Iraq—he's just doing his job. On the phone to his wife, he's unwavering—he needs to be there, and she needs to tough it out.

A stoic protagonist is fine and good, but it means dynamism must come from elsewhere. That doesn't happen here. The movie's color palette is soft and bright, the Middle East as imagined by Thomas Kinkade. Cheap tricks abound. Time slows as we watch a bullet fly from Kyle's rifle, warping the air. The pacing is breakneck: With an entire life to cover, no scene gets room to stretch.

The ensemble cast, meanwhile, is flat. Other soldiers feed Kyle lines, like proxies for audience doubt. Is Kyle worried the war isn't justified? No, "they" attacked "us" first. Does he feel bad about killing? No, everyone he killed is bad. In one scene, higher-ups tell him a man he shot was carrying a Quran. "I don't know what a Quran looks like," he says, defiantly. It looked like ammo to him.

A scene like this offers the perfect chance to explore war's moral ambiguities. Eastwood, with his infinite jump cuts across time and space, doesn't bother. Kyle's post-traumatic stress disorder is reduced to a few minutes, as he hears ominous sounds in public places after returning stateside. Before long, he's grinning again. As with the opening scene, the movie resolves every complication as soon as it's raised. Kyle pulls the trigger every time.

Critic's Grade: D

SEE IT: American Sniper is rated R. It opens Friday at most major Portland-area theaters.

WWeek 2015

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