A Tedious Slog

Rating: 5/10 (25 February 2015)

I'm not going to talk about my political views on the Iraq war-or war in general in this review. This is a review of the movie itself. However, I will say that this is pure American military propaganda and shouldn't be seen by anyone who has the slightest anti-war sentiment.
By the way, this review has extremely minor spoilers (can spoilers for a biopic really be considered spoilers?)
American Sniper is directed by Clint Eastwood and is based on the autobiography by soldier Chris Kyle of the same name. It features Bradley Cooper as the soldier during his time in the Iraq war. It also details his experience as a child and shows how he first met his wife, played by Sienna Miller. During his time period in the war, he also has to make many difficult situations in which he is forced to make a quick decision. These scenes would be intense, however they're incredibly overdone. There were more POV shots of him looking down his scope than I can count on my right hand. But we'll get into that later.
Bradley Cooper is functional as Kyle. He doesn't give an amazing performance, not one that you haven't seen in other similar war films anyway, but it's gripping enough to the point where it pretty much becomes the best part of the movie. His wife is good, although I found her to be a bit over the top in a few scenes, and his fellow soldiers do good jobs of playing soldiers, despite not remembering any of them.
One of the biggest issues with this movie is the direction. Clint Eastwood, an 84 year old man at this point, continues to become more lax with his films. It isn't directed with any passion at all like his other films like Million Dollar Baby or Mystic River. It seems like he's trying to set a world record for most reused shots in a single movie. Like I said earlier, there are so many shots looking through the sniper scope, and then cutting to the finger itching on the trigger. The action scenes aren't poorly filmed, but they do a poor job of building tension. It just seems like Eastwood put a camera on top of a building and told people to run while shooting guns.
The story becomes pure tedium. It follows a structure that is: Kyle goes to war, returns home, goes to war, returns home. His wife is portrayed as a stereotypical naggy wife who keeps telling him not to go back. She even threatens one time that if he goes again she probably won't stay, yet he goes anyway, and of course she stays with him. So what was even the point? When he finally returns home for good, his experience with PTSD is completely overlooked and is wrapped up in about 10 minutes. I know I said I wasn't going to talk about the propaganda in this movie but this is a moment that can't be missed. It basically says "Oh, go to war and one session of therapy and you'll be fine in no time!" when really it takes months upon months to get over the horrors of war. I guess while I'm on the topic it should be mentioned that throughout the whole movie Kyle is portrayed as a hero, which isn't true to fact at all, and is really frightening, especially since this is a man who's idolized for killing over 100 people and being extraordinarily racist.
Something I've noticed with more and more biopics lately is how they never show the death of their subject, it's told to the audience through text. Despite not being a fan of Kyle in real life or his portrayal in the movie, raw, emotional power can certainly be drawn from the death of the movies subject, yet the movie doesn't show it. It's just as perplexing as not showing Turner's suicide in "The Imitation Game" but that's another story.
The dialog in this movie is functional. The editing, sound mixing, even the score, are pretty functional. None of them really stick out, which is an extremely big issue, since there are so many war movies nowadays. It does nothing to distinguish itself.
The one word that can describe "American Sniper" is lazy. Every aspect of it, with the exception of the performances, seems extremely dry and passionless. It feels like Eastwood looked at the finished product and said "Eh, good enough!" If it wasn't for the propaganda, I'd give this a 6/10, but it can't be ignored that this movie idolizes it's "hero" and the military, which is why I give it a 5/10. A good central performance can't save this lazy effort from Eastwood. Maybe it's time for him to retire.