A Dubious Portrait of American Patriotism

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2015)

The heavily disturbing image of the Twin Towers falling to their burning end and of people leaping off from its heights lit an unstoppable fire in many Americans on that day. Since then, many patriotic Americans have enlisted in the army, hoping to find some form of fulfilling resolution to all this terror. Some of them even agree with the war's never-ending duration in that it will protect the homeland from any other terrorists as long as they "protect and serve." American Sniper follows the true story of one of these soldiers: Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper)—a tall, sturdy All-American who continually chooses to leave his beautiful wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), and later on his two sweet kids for the sake of protecting this ultimate American ideal. He's a man who truly believes in the war, and thus, he also turned out to be the deadliest sniper in US history with a confirmed kill rate of 160 people throughout his tours of duty. How could a human even tolerate the responsibility and sight of so many corpses and gore without a particular psychological toll? Well, unsurprisingly, the answer is that one can't, and Kyle only displays the kind of issue here that many individuals choose to irresponsibly gloss over when they're on a support campaign for war: PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder). Following yet another visit to Iraq, he comes home to the pain of looming anxiety and lengthy sessions of completely zoning out from reality.
With American Sniper, Clint Eastwood manages to create a thoroughly intense war film. As the deafening gunshots ring around the IMAX audience, the film's meticulous sense of gritty realism ensures to keep the viewers in pervasive suspense. Even when Kyle isn't focusing on deadly shots at a suspicious man's or kid's head, the brilliantly tense score sounds off with a foreboding build-up of what sounds like a sniper rifle reloading, followed by its haunting discharge, so as to never ease the tension in the room and keep us on the edge of our seats. There's no way I can emphasize the excellence of the sound use enough (the sound mixing and editing) in this epic, installing you into an observational post right there on the battlefield as many get blown to bits left and right. It's rough; it's graphically violent; it's unsettling.
Bradley Cooper once again makes a smart choice for his latest role; this one though might not be as showy as his performance in Silver Linings Playbook, but his distressed eyes and failing psychological condition tell us everything we need to know through his journey. In which case, it's also supported by an impressive actress in Sienna Miller who works with fairly little material but adds so much more of her own emotional meat into the role than expected. The look of worry never leaves her face; even for those small intimate moments of family time and reunions with her husband in which excitement and merriment briefly spring out, she eventually returns to her emotional default—to a sort of declining hope for the future of a soldier's life. It's a shame Miller isn't receiving more attention in the awards circuit. In sum, from a technical level, American Sniper is one of the more memorable experiences in the modern war genre, but when we regard what's supposed to be an enthralling narrative, we start to witness questionable elements.
Like with Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, the major problem here is the sheer closeness to its subject. As the narrative flows along, it becomes more transparent just how much of a tribute American Sniper intends to be to Chris Kyle's legacy, followed in the end by the standard biopic footage that shows us the outcomes of his life and history. Eastwood's obvious jingoistic attitude here unfortunately adds a lot of bias when an objective and more intelligent perspective would've made for a far more fascinating study of a man who has sniped and brutally killed more people (whether innocent or genuinely criminal) than a normal human being can possibly endure in a state of sanity. There is no absolute morality in this tale as right as (simplistically) cheering on your nation, no matter what, sounds.
Every time American Sniper hints at hesitation from its protagonist, it refutes any possible anti-war arguments by reverting to blind patriotism again and again through heroic dialogue, the numerous American flags sighted across the movie's mise en scène, and the obvious tributary segments. "This war was just destiny, and it's up to us to enthusiastically back America up in its undoubtable bravery and (supposed) righteousness," says American Sniper. Then again, considering something as heavy-handedly named as the film's very own title, you know exactly what position in the debate it will take.
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