Directed by Clint Eastwood - 2014 poster
Well, I've reached the end. In fact, I have watched 48 films out of the Great 50. The Steel Helmet (1951) is not available in DVD in a 'straight' English version, let alone with subtitles; I have a DVD of Schindler's List (1993) but decided against viewing it because of its subject matter. I taught the Holocaust over several years and, frankly, don't want to be reminded of the sheer evil that humanity can inflict on its fellow beings.
So, what of American Sniper? I must admit, I was impressed with the acting, particularly of Bradley Cooper (Chris Kyle) and Sienna Miller (Taya Kyle) and thought Clint Eastwood's directing was solid and focused. Not knowing the real-life story, I was somewhat shocked at the end to read of Kyle's death, ironically at a shooting range, shot by a U.S. veteran suffering from PTSD. How ironic, some would say. I also found the Special Feature - One Soldier's Story: The Journey of American Sniper - very interesting, especially hearing the real Taya talking about her husband. It also explained why the screenwriter and director decided to include more of the 'home background' in the film. Previous war movies I have watched felt that the addition of a love interest etc. was simply there for Box Office reasons. This time it was integral to the story of a man almost obsessed by conflict but then traumatised by it, as he watched his buddies get shot or die later of their wounds. When asked by a Veterans Affairs psychiatrist if he is haunted by all the things he did in the war, he replies, it is all the guys [he] couldn't save that haunts him.
Chris and Taya Kyle
When the film started with a deer being hunted and shot, I thought Oh! not another Robert de Niro effort! But the movie was far superior to The Deer Hunter. Bradley Cooper, who bulked-up considerably for the part, gave an intimate and harrowing character study which clearly got across the physical and psychological toll exacted on a human being on the front line of warfare. His first kills are, tragically, a young boy and a woman about to attack Marines with an anti-tank grenade.
Taking aim
A Bounty on his own head, Kyle is tasked with finding and killing a n opposition sniper, Mustafa (an Olympic Games medalist from Syria); this he does, with a long distance shot at 2,100 yards, but in doing so he exposes his team to armed insurgents. Only then does Kyle tearfully call his wife, saying it was time to come home. It was his fourth harrowing combat duty.
I liked his father telling Kyle that there were three types of people in the world: sheep, who were led, wolves who were predators, and sheepdogs - who were blessed with the gift of aggression and the overpowering need to protect the flock. A rare breed! Also the exchange, when first meeting Taya. Kyle says there were three things to worry about in life - ego, booze and women. She responds they are all there then! Another memorable phrase was: Fallujah was bad. Ramadi was worse. This shit is fucking biblical.
The film grossed $547.1 million worldwide against a budget of around $58 million. It was the highest-grossing war film of all time (breaking Saving Private Ryan's record) and was Eastwood's highest-grossing movie to date. Reviews were generally favourable. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter called the film a taut, vivid and sad account of the brief life of the most accomplished marksman in American military annals. Another critic said it was a subdued celebration of a warrior's skill and a sorrowful lament over his alienation and misery. There were negative viewpoints. One suggested it viewed Iraqis as savages and that it furthered ignorance, fear and bigotry. Another echoed this, by saying the film was dangerous due to mutilating the classic hero's journey into a simplistic, brutal and sadistic destruction of "evildoers". Eastwood's response was that his film showed what war does to the people left behind...to the family and the people who have to go back into civilian life.
One cannot leave without commenting on a scene which proved a distraction to viewers and became a cause celebre: the fake baby!
2015 DVD
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