unexciting

Rating: 6/10 (17 January 2015)

I have been a fan of Clint Eastwood as a director since the unappreciated but very powerful Play Misty For Me and, spoilers, i wan't too moved by Grand Torino. This film is very similar to GT in scope.. it has very little of it.
Lets see if this is true;
In GT, an angry old man meets a family of koreans, whom he fought in the war. We discover that he's not really angry, he's just very experienced with the world.He takes a young korean kid under his wing, and then proves to everyone he had a right to be "angry", when he sacrifices himself for the freedom of the korean family.
Or in short, character A is the way he is, because death is closer than you think. And then he dies.
In American Sniper, we have a character who is going to kill an enemy sniper, and then he does. The climax of the story is made obvious since the very beginning of the film, in plain speech no less. The "butcher of baghdad" story is just a framing device.
In both situations the character doesn't change, doesn't grow, it's just one straight line from beginning to end.
Play Misty was not very different, but at least the characters depicted were unusual, and it had a story which you would not read about in mainstream, more so during the years when it was filmed.
So, to recap;
I thought American Sniper was extremely well made. The production is stellar, and this is where AS derives most of its entertainment value from.
The story is flat. The character's involvement is marginal.
The "at home" sections were not disturbingly soppy, but i felt they didn't add anything to the film.
The final "war changes you" bit was almost forced in, and thankfully not made into the main story, because god knows we've see that one a million times already.
So what you have is a really well done if somewhat simplistic war film, like dozens before it.
I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but for that mid-week entertainment, it's worth a decent
My vote: 6.5/10 - it's OK, but its not very exciting.