The events driven approach limits the film to being a very one note and simplistic film and character piece

Rating: Null/10 (31 January 2015)

I have seen a lot of Awards Season films in my years, and at some point I suspect that I will take the approach that I take towards summer movies now – which is to let them and their hype pass, and come back to those that outlive their publicity and marketing. However, with American Sniper I was intrigued to see it for myself on the basis of the reported controversy; with some slamming the film for glorifying someone who killed so many people, while others saying that the hero marks the life of an American hero who put himself in harm's way in the service of a mission given to him by his country. I approached the film open to whatever it chose to do of these, and curious as to what others were seeing, but the odd thing is that the reason that the film is accused of both extremes, is that it does both of them.
As a narrative the film is events driven, starting in childhood, training, deployment, tours, and finally a return home. It is understandable in its structure and it is not its fault that these places and experiences almost feel too familiar now thanks to video games and films making heavy use of them as entertainment. The film focuses totally on Kyle, keeping the camera very close to him even to the detriment of other characters and situations. In a way this makes the film more engaging because we do stay involved with one person rather than the fog of war, but at the same time it also limits the scope of the film to his perception, his actions, his bottled up feelings. In this way it really plays it so straight that you can take it how you want to find it – which was maybe the aim of the film. So if you feel Kyle was deeply affected by having to kill women and children in a war without end, and threw himself into his mission rather than confront his own actions, then the film doesn't do anything to dissuade you from that; but if you think he was a square-jawed hero doing what he needed to do without question, then the film also gives you that. So the extremes of the argument get to be happy with the film – or unhappy with it (which to watch them fight, you would be fair to assume is the same thing).
The problem then is that for anyone who is not coming in with an agenda to feel a certain way, the film actually does very little, because this "straight shooter" approach provides very little of interest. Cooper does what he can with his face and body, while Miller plays it reasonably well; however it is all very straight and there is no nuance or room for thought or extension. In his direction Eastwood delivers good tension and action on the ground; okay he uses artistic license quite heavily to build in a specific narrative tension, but it works for what he wants to do. With his characters though, he cannot find much outside of scenes that exist specifically to perform that function – of which they are generally late in the film and as functional as they sound.
There is lots of online fighting about who Chris Kyle was, what this film does, and what it is trying to say; part of this does come from the way that the film doesn't really take a stand, hinting at things, avoiding others, muddying other aspects to produce a mostly event driven film that broadly tells a tale, but never really gets anywhere close to the person, people, or place.