Gritty, Brutal At Times, And Pretty Alright.

Rating: 6/10 (16 August 2019)

Yeah, it's alright.
Bradley Cooper's performance is pretty good, the pacing is decent, there are a few nice shots here and there, and a lot of sympathy and attention is given to soldiers and civilians caught within a war zone and the effect it has on their state of mind. It's certainly not a fresh and original take on the trauma of warfare, but it's certainly presented well with decent seemingly realistic gun-play and some very harrowing moments - like seeing a young child and his mother being killed by the protagonist in one of the opening scenes (arguably justifiable in the context of the scene, but nonetheless an intense moment of ethical dilemma). So I think it's fair to say that this film doesn't exactly pull its punches. And while American Sniper comes with a good helping of chest-thumping patriotism, which is to be expected from a Clint Eastwood film, it still does an okay job of at least giving some humanity to the opposing side like showing a picture of the enemy sniper, Mustafa, as a Syrian gold medalist in the past. It's limited, sure, but at least it's there.
However, the cinematography isn't all that special, the score is unmemorable, and very few of the characters outside of the few in the main cast have any character development whatsoever, thus the few that die leave barely any emotional impact and the ones that survive are wholly unremarkable. In addition, its realism and accuracy to the real-world events is questionable to say the very least (but again, that's expected with most films like this) and some of the special effects like the helicopter in the sandstorm are quite bad. Not to mention that clearly fake baby doll which everyone has already talked about at great length, so I won't.
Overall: 6/10