American Sniper is the Clint Eastwood directed drama based on the book of the same name. it tells the story of Chris Kyle, who grew up in Texas and went on to become the most lethal sniper in the history of the U.S. military. It opens with him about to fire on a woman and a young boy who are about to throw an explosive at U.S. soldiers. Before this situation is resolved it flashes back to his childhood where his dad takes him deer hunting. This is followed by a rather heavy handed scene where his father explains at the dinner table that there are three types of people in the world, the sheep, the wolves, and something about the people that protect the sheep.
As a young adult he does the rodeo circuit in Texas before joining the military. Critics took issue with the use of 9/11 news footage suggesting that Iraq was involved, however, in the narrative of this film, he joins the military after seeing on the news the African embassy bombings in 1998. Those bombings were done by Al Queda. So by the time he sees 9/11 on the news he was already in the military.
Kyle becomes a Navy Seal, and does several tours of Iraq as a sniper. The film does invent an opponent for him, a Syrian Olympic medal winning sniper who kills several of Kyle’s fellow soldiers. Some objected to this invented character, but it gave the film an direction to work with, rather than just randomly showing different unconnected missions. Along the way he raises a family, and there’s the natural strain between his feelings of needing to be with his men and his family needs. He grows estranged from his family as he doesn’t want to talk about what happens in Iraq.
The comic book fan in me wants to acknowledge that there are several references to the Marvel Comics character The Punisher. The Punisher is a Vietnam veteran, (later updated to Iraq/Afghanistan) whose bears a unique skull symbol. Early in the movie a soldier is reading a specific issue of Max Punisher. Max was a line of uncensored adult comics from Marvel, Max Punisher being the line’s most popular title. The soldier defends himself for reading comics saying it’s not a comic it’s a graphic novel, but actually what he was reading was not a graphic novel, it was a monthly comic. The Skull later appears painted on a vehicle, and later on the uniforms and magazine clips. (So you could argue that this is the best Punisher movie ever lol)
Most of the movie feels just average, but the third act picks up a lot. We see Kyle very tormented at home, but we find out what is bothering him is not the actions he did in the war, (the usual story telling route) but that he couldn’t save more men than he did. (Another thing the critics seemed to miss) We get a good action scene in Iraq where he finally faces off against the enemy sniper, while also fighting other insurgents while a sandstorm approaches. The battle scene is played straight, no musical score, no more dramatic than it needs to be.
After this he reconciles with his family and appears to have come full circle. He also takes the time to visit with and talk to wounded veterans, before his final fate is revealed.
It seems that any film portraying modern US war veterans is automatically disliked by certain segments of the population. American Sniper has already been met with false controversies and bizarre statements from celebrities. While it is true that Kyle was known for making up stories about incidents that happened in the United States, the main point of the film was what happened in Iraq. American Sniper is not the greatest film, but as I said it does pick up in the third act. Like Hurt Locker or Zero Dark Thirty, it simply tries to tell a story about soldiers. It is what it is.
And Now for Something Serious 