Best Bradley Cooper performance since The Place Beyond the Pines

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2015)

Clint Eastwood is a master director, so right away I expected this to be good. I did not, however, expect to be as blown away by Bradley Cooper's performance as I was. Don't get me wrong, he's great, and he's apparently with Meryl Streep in getting nominated once a year, but I was not expecting him to be this good. His portrayal of American NAVY Seal sniper Chris Kyle who goes through four tours while struggling to cope with the horrors of war during the time with his wife and kids is possibly his best performance to date.
Clint Eastwood never fails to impress. The directing is incredibly sharp, probably the best thing about this film. He takes a couple risks by being a little less subtle in certain moments. There are a lot of action scenes in this, but it's edited very well, showing us the war and its impact at home, even if it doesn't last very long. We got to see some interesting shots we don't usually see in Clint's film, like the airstrike close up shots, or the CGI helicopter in full view.
Bradley Cooper portrays an American soldier whose duty it is to kill in the most realistic way imagined. He is on fire in this! The scene where he almost kills the kid with the RPG, his expressions and reactions are spot on!
I did enjoy the editing, but sometimes it went a little too much. Scenes are occasionally cut short after lasting like 10 seconds. Not to mention there's a scene that cuts away while they're getting shot at like, "um okay, I guess the terrorists got bored and went home". I would say the film could have shown a little more of Bradley Cooper trying to adapt to his life rather than just 2 minutes of that then 10 more minutes of action, but it's so well filmed it doesn't bother as much.
I highly recommend this film if you're patriotic, or if you love Eastwood. This is a must see, the film that The Hurt Locker should have been.