Anti-War?

Rating: 8/10 (6 February 2015)

American Sniper is,in my humble opinion,alongside with "The Imitation Game", the best biopic of the year. Clin Eastwood and Bradley Cooper team up and bring us a good film, well filmed, with good performances (Cooper is particularly excellent; Sienna Miller is also making a name for her,she is almost unrecognizable) and a strong and coese story based on the autobiography of Chris Kyle,the man who is named the most lethal sniper in the history of US. Although all its virtues, American Sniper is a linear forward driven film. It lacks some more deep exploration of the human relations. Don't get me wrong, Kyle's relationship with his spouse Taya is well explored but, some characters, namely his brother Jeff aren't too explored and there isn't too much depth in their relations with the main protagonist. In the beginning of pre-production, Steven Spielberg was attached to direct, but then Eastwood stepped in. Well,not depreciating Eastwood, I think that Spielberg would have given that depth and would have helped to make this film something bigger. In spite of all that, the film is worth watching and the Oscar Nominations talk for themselves. When I left the theater one question echoed in my mind : What is the movie message? Go to war? Is War a demonstration of power and strength? Of course it is. Do not go to war?War is the worst human creation. Well, I think that Eastwood didn't want this to be a Pro-War movie, he wanted to depict the horrors of the war seen by a Sniper perspective. However, in the end, the message was not that straight. It was standing on that thin line. This happened because of the portray of Kyle. In the end, he was a patriot fighting for his country. He wasn 't a neutral person. I really believe that the message wasn't a Pro-War one, but, shamefully, it wasn't a Anti-War one either. That's because Chris Kyle can be considered a war hero by some, and at the same time, a cold blooded murdered by others. He lived is life in the grey zone. Because life isn't just made of black and white.