I'm not a big fan of glamourising war...

Rating: 6/10 (27 January 2015)

I've never been a big fan of glamourising war. This doesn't mean that I don't like war films - 'Saving Private Ryan' is one of the best films I've ever seen, but I think its success comes mostly from its desire to show it at its most brutal and emotional. Nobody watches 'Saving Private Ryan' and thinks "I can't wait to sign up". I could tell, therefore, from the very opening minutes of 'American Sniper' that it was going to irritate me somewhat. It's a film that makes a point that I do agree with, but unfortunately it takes two hours to even begin making it.
In the film, we are told the true story of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who spends most of his time lying on the top of buildings squinting through the sight of his gun and shooting people who don't know he's there. It opens with a fairly shocking realisation, that he is going to have to kill a child who is about to throw a grenade at one of the US tanks. We then cut away to a montage of Kyle's growing up and development. He watches 9/11 on the TV and decides that he needs to fight for his country - he is a true patriot. (I was initially annoyed at the use of 9/11 as a plot point, but then remembered it's a true story, and let it off slightly). What follows is 2 hours of war, interspersed with a bit of his family life, but to the extent that everything feels clipped. Of those in the army, only Kyle really has enough time spent on him, so when the others die it never packs the emotional punch that it should. We get brief snippets of Sienna Miller, who plays Taya Kyle, being unhappy with Chris' devotion and damage, but never long enough that you truly care.
This would all be okay if it wasn't for a crucial flaw in the film's process - nothing made me care about Chris Kyle for the vast majority of the runtime. A biopic only really succeeds if you're rooting for the main character, and here I didn't feel that at all. Bradley Cooper does act fairly well, but the material is lacking and this causes the film to feel like a list of his kills rather than an emotional journey. The saving grace of the film is the very end, when he resigns from service after his fourth term (most of his friends seem to be dead by now), and he decides to do some good at home. He helps out veterans with little hope, and we see the effects of shell-shock on him. Finally, we're given the slightest glimpse that war isn't as cool or easy as you might think.
Eastwood's direction seems quite hands off, and the cinematography is washed out and unremarkable. Having seen 'Mystic River', 'Gran Torino' and 'Changeling' fairly recently, it's a shame to see his directing style become a bit lazy, as if he's relaxing into a process rather than really committing himself to the film.
I did clock on leaving the cinema that the film might not be for me. I'm not American and I'm not that patriotic. I'm a fairly pacifist person and fundamentally disagreed with Chris Kyle's job. But the way the film is made causes it to live up completely to the joke "American Propaganda", making the American soldier look like the hero, and any Muslim character instantly a bad person. I was annoyed while watching it because it didn't interest me or emote me, and because I couldn't help but remember that it's nominated for 'Best Picture' at the Oscars and 'Gone Girl' is not. I watched a number of great films last year, and a fair few of them were way better than this.
You may really enjoy this film. You may relate to its message or its main character in a way that I could not. You may admire his patriotism and desire to save his country by shooting people who couldn't see him. Unfortunately, I did not.