skillfully made by Eastwood

Rating: 7/10 (8 December 2015)

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) and his brother are raised by their hard-nosed father to be sheepdogs defending against the wolves of the world. They are weekend rodeo cowboys. After watching the African embassies bombings, Chris signs up for the SEALs and meets Taya Renae (Sienna Miller) at a bar. They get married and he goes off to Iraq as a sniper. On his first tour in Falluja, he kills a kid with a grenade. He returns on multiple tours and facing a skilled Olympian sniper called Mustafa.
The war action is quite tense. Clint Eastwood's years of experience have laid the foundations. This is skillfully made despite the fake baby. The biggest pet peeve is these guys chatting on patrol which obviously leads to an explosive attack. It's a bit of a trope. Chris' private life is well shown but his closed off nature is not always the most compelling drama. It also hits a little too much on the head sometimes. For example, he's talking to Taya on the phone when a battle explodes around him. It's an interesting but overwrought scene when it happens the first time but the movie returns to the well again. This is a very much heroic portrait which may annoy certain people. As a movie, it mostly works well.