Propaganda? I think not.

Rating: 7/10 (25 February 2015)

I think I've never seen a movie you can read so many things into as "American Sniper". If you have the right mindset, the one that lets you quote "Team America: World Police" every time you try to argue for the assassination of Kim Jong Un, you will definitely enjoy this movie. But for all the wrong reasons. If you, on the other hand, think that any movie with US Marines in it should focus on American war crimes or at least have pictures from Abu Ghraib in the Credits, because everything else is just propaganda - Well, you'll definitely think this movie is just another DOD propaganda flick. I myself think it's neither the former nor the latter. It's a portrait, pure and simple. A portrait of a man with a somewhat limited view of the world, who does not think in shades of gray but rather in pure, simple and easy black and white - sheepdog colors. For whom a kid with a grenade is a savage. Maybe a little bit more difficult to shoot, but basically a savage. Consideration of motive, any hint at ambivalence doesn't enter his mind. And it can't enter, or he would not have been the sniper he actually was. You can't shoot 160 people while wondering if some of them might have had a good reason for what they're doing. And Eastwood ( & Hall, Spielberg etc.) take a step back and just look at that man, his scary view of people and at what war does to him. And all that from his point of view, how he pictures things. The Arab super sniper does not talk. Why would he? He's just another savage after all. The movie does not judge one way or another, it just portrays. If you can see and enjoy it just for that, go see it.