Surprisingly Average

Rating: 5/10 (21 August 2016)

Clint Eastwood is one of the great living directors, and his primary strength is character development. Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima- all of these films are the work of a master director who understands story structure and has a nose for character development. Which is why this film shocked me. No character is developed in this movie. I thought that Eastwood would portray Chris Kyle as a three dimensional character with real world worries, but no. He is merely the vessel this film has to follow scene after scene until the movie ends. And that's all this movie is... A collection of scenes that run together with no real purpose other than that Chris Kyle is the primary subject of them. The film has zero sense of pacing because the movie has the structure of: Chris Kyle joins the Army; Chris Kyle goes on a tour of duty; Chris Kyle comes home to family drama; Chris Kyle goes on tour; Rinse and repeat until the movie's Hackneyed and cliché finale. The weirdest part of this film? There is an actual villain in this movie that is exactly like Chris Kyle, and whose purpose is to challenge him. It's ridiculous and very out of place in this movie. In fact, it feels tacked on as an afterthought. Probably because Eastwood realized that his main character was facing no adversity in a WAR film. The movie isn't terrible, but it is definitely rushed- which is surprising, as Mr. Eastwood's films usually have far more nuance to them. 5 out of 10.