You think you know, but you don’t know. For the majority of Americans who have never served in the military, it’s easy to sit in the comforts of your home, reading op-ed pieces or watching pundits describe the rights and wrongs of this foreign policy or that war or so-and-so’s definition of national defense. It’s easy to judge, to see the horrors and claim a moral high ground, to sympathize with all sides amid so much carnage. But you aren’t the one wondering if a woman or child a thousand yards away is going to throw a grenade at your brothers. You aren’t the one forced to decide—in a moment as fast as the blink of an eye—to shoot that woman or child in order to save a hundred fellow soldiers. You aren’t the one facing the mental, emotional, legal, and even spiritual consequences of that instantaneous decision. It’s easy to say what you might do from afar. But you don’t know.
This is the razor’s edge on which soldiers daily live in Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial effort, American Sniper. The film attempts to show us the realities of combat—as it's happening on the ground and its effects long after—and the toll it takes not only on soldiers abroad but on their families back home. Bradley Cooper plays Chris Kyle, the real-life Navy SEAL sniper who recorded more kills than anyone in combat history. Kyle serves four duties in Iraq, but his troubles follow him home as he constantly tries to readjust to civilian life with each stint back to the States. We follow Kyle and his wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), as their relationship evolves from their first meeting to marrying to having two children. She begs him to be more emotionally available, to lessen his commitments to his fellow troops, but Kyle’s mind is often elsewhere, his nerves always on a precipice. He can’t leave the battlefield behind. After finishing his service, he is ultimately able to find solace and healing by helping other veterans acclimate to new lives as injured, and forever scarred, civilians. Sadly, Kyle meets a tragic demise in a sad and ironic denouement that shows the fragility of life, even thousands of miles away from war.
American Sniper is a film that doesn’t have a mission; in that way, it is much closer to The Hurt Locker than Zero Dark Thirty. The mission is simply surviving the battlefield, and then surviving the transition to home life. While there is an ominous antagonist—an enemy sniper named Mustafa who is a world-class sharpshooter and Kyle’s primary target, as well as other high-ranking associates of Osama bin Laden—the struggle is for Kyle’s mind and soul as the instincts and skills that have made him a legend among his comrades also make him barely human back in domesticity. As Kyle sees friend after friend die in combat, we dread when he may meet his end, as well. With each return trip home, we ultimately are forced to wonder, like he does, why he has been allowed to survive.
Cooper is magnificent as the brawny and weary soldier. He carries the weight of his past, his family, and his country on his broad shoulders, and his heroism is unassuming while completely earned. Cooper disappears into this role, which should be the defining work of his career to this point. Miller is effective as his wife, the audience’s emotional conduit trying to deal with Kyle’s stoicism. While she is proud of him, she also wants him out of the job at which he is so good. We can’t help but speculate how many other couples go through these same circumstances.
The cinematography of the war scenes successfully portrays the chaos of battle without inducing the confusion common to so many of our current hyper-cut films. The Alamo-like sandstorm sequence is one of the most interesting and exciting action sequences I’ve ever seen. And Eastwood’s choice of interspersing various combat scenes with quiet scenes back home creates the sense that Kyle is never fully in one place at a time, always split between the two things he loves the most. Eastwood doesn’t necessarily do anything special in American Sniper, but his direction serves the story as it should.
Some may believe, upon viewing, that American Sniper glamorizes violence, that it ignores the complexity of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while propagandizing an assassin as hero. Those are fair, albeit simplistic views of this film. This is a portrayal not of opposing sides in battle, though it is made overtly clear to the audience who the home team is. This is a portrayal of the human psyche, of what happens to people who commit violence even when they believe in their heart it is justified. There is no good war, even if you win. The aim of doing “right”—whatever that may mean to the public—has agonizing and extended consequences that very few people can observe. This film gives us a tiny glimpse of that.
American Sniper should remind viewers of the sacrifices of not only American soldiers, but of their families, who bear an unimaginable emotional burden—living in the gaps of deployments, waiting by phones, burying friends—sharing their loved ones with the rest of us. When things get complicated, it’s easy to question, to condemn, to blame. The sidelines are safe for a reason. You think you know, but you don’t know. Thanks to Cooper, Miller, and Eastwood, the rest of us are just a little bit closer to knowing.
Grade: A
This is the razor’s edge on which soldiers daily live in Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial effort, American Sniper. The film attempts to show us the realities of combat—as it's happening on the ground and its effects long after—and the toll it takes not only on soldiers abroad but on their families back home. Bradley Cooper plays Chris Kyle, the real-life Navy SEAL sniper who recorded more kills than anyone in combat history. Kyle serves four duties in Iraq, but his troubles follow him home as he constantly tries to readjust to civilian life with each stint back to the States. We follow Kyle and his wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), as their relationship evolves from their first meeting to marrying to having two children. She begs him to be more emotionally available, to lessen his commitments to his fellow troops, but Kyle’s mind is often elsewhere, his nerves always on a precipice. He can’t leave the battlefield behind. After finishing his service, he is ultimately able to find solace and healing by helping other veterans acclimate to new lives as injured, and forever scarred, civilians. Sadly, Kyle meets a tragic demise in a sad and ironic denouement that shows the fragility of life, even thousands of miles away from war.
American Sniper is a film that doesn’t have a mission; in that way, it is much closer to The Hurt Locker than Zero Dark Thirty. The mission is simply surviving the battlefield, and then surviving the transition to home life. While there is an ominous antagonist—an enemy sniper named Mustafa who is a world-class sharpshooter and Kyle’s primary target, as well as other high-ranking associates of Osama bin Laden—the struggle is for Kyle’s mind and soul as the instincts and skills that have made him a legend among his comrades also make him barely human back in domesticity. As Kyle sees friend after friend die in combat, we dread when he may meet his end, as well. With each return trip home, we ultimately are forced to wonder, like he does, why he has been allowed to survive.
Cooper is magnificent as the brawny and weary soldier. He carries the weight of his past, his family, and his country on his broad shoulders, and his heroism is unassuming while completely earned. Cooper disappears into this role, which should be the defining work of his career to this point. Miller is effective as his wife, the audience’s emotional conduit trying to deal with Kyle’s stoicism. While she is proud of him, she also wants him out of the job at which he is so good. We can’t help but speculate how many other couples go through these same circumstances.
The cinematography of the war scenes successfully portrays the chaos of battle without inducing the confusion common to so many of our current hyper-cut films. The Alamo-like sandstorm sequence is one of the most interesting and exciting action sequences I’ve ever seen. And Eastwood’s choice of interspersing various combat scenes with quiet scenes back home creates the sense that Kyle is never fully in one place at a time, always split between the two things he loves the most. Eastwood doesn’t necessarily do anything special in American Sniper, but his direction serves the story as it should.
Some may believe, upon viewing, that American Sniper glamorizes violence, that it ignores the complexity of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while propagandizing an assassin as hero. Those are fair, albeit simplistic views of this film. This is a portrayal not of opposing sides in battle, though it is made overtly clear to the audience who the home team is. This is a portrayal of the human psyche, of what happens to people who commit violence even when they believe in their heart it is justified. There is no good war, even if you win. The aim of doing “right”—whatever that may mean to the public—has agonizing and extended consequences that very few people can observe. This film gives us a tiny glimpse of that.
American Sniper should remind viewers of the sacrifices of not only American soldiers, but of their families, who bear an unimaginable emotional burden—living in the gaps of deployments, waiting by phones, burying friends—sharing their loved ones with the rest of us. When things get complicated, it’s easy to question, to condemn, to blame. The sidelines are safe for a reason. You think you know, but you don’t know. Thanks to Cooper, Miller, and Eastwood, the rest of us are just a little bit closer to knowing.
Grade: A