A gripping and tense story of the greatest sniper in US history

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2015)

American Sniper is yet another war film that follows the life of Chris Kyle; known as the most deadly sniper in history, both on and off the battlefield. The film is directed by Clint Eastwood and stars Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle. Right away from hearing this team working on the film you cant help but get a little excited about film. You expect a really good performance from Bradley Cooper and that is exactly what you get. The performance of Cooper is what really makes this film great. He bulked up for the role and is able to play both the loving husband at home and the 'legend' sniper on the battlefield. It was a tough role to fulfill, portraying someone who only recently passed but he did a very good job. The only negative thing about his performance and preventing it from being one of the best may not be too much of his fault, i felt at times that i was watching Bradley Cooper and not Chris Kyle. At some times he really transforms into this other person but at other times i just see Bradley, and that took me out of it a little bit.
The story itself was at times intense and at times pretty calm and it did have a good mixture of that. There may have been a few scenarios in the film that you may have seen in other sniper films or war films but not enough to feel like you have seen this movie before. One last thing that i thought of is that there is a smaller plot line involving his brother that seems to all of a sudden disappear at one point in the film, and that just felt like a little bit of a waste to not follow it through to the end. But in the end American Sniper was a pretty good war/ sniper film with an almost great performance by Bradley Cooper. - 7.9