A Mess of War Morals

Rating: 3/10 (24 January 2015)

Eastwood is an interesting director for me. He has made some of cinemas most acclaimed and beloved films (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby), yet I often find myself on the opposing side of many people's glowing praise of him. Despite having a powerful true-story behind it and one of the greatest trailers I've seen all year, American Sniper is overly preachy and a mess of war morals. Chris Kyle's story is undeniably telling and dramatically tragic: the most deadly Navy SEAL sniper in history learns how to deal with the things he's seen and done while fighting the War on Terror. Cooper is REALLY good as Kyle, continuing his streak of beautifully walking the line between prestigious actor and intangible movie star. If only the script and dialogue garnered fewer eye-rolls and more genuine emotion. Honestly, it's among the weakest and most pretentious scripts in a long time, like if Nicholas Sparks wrote an overtly jingoistic war film. While at moments it seems to want to capture the coldness of war, at others it asks us to cheer for the very things that are destroying these lives. Part of the problem is that not too long ago Kathryn Bigelow, with The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, told very similar war-ethic tales, but with better results. Both of those films represent their characters and the Iraq War with complexity and nuance, all while being gut-wrenchingly thrilling and tautly focused. American Sniper does none of these things. Instead of giving this thing anymore money, go watch the crucial and criminally under-seen Selma.