A patriotic biopic which is not quite captivating as it unfolds, but Bradley Cooper's committed performance alone makes it worth a shot.

Rating: 6/10 (17 January 2015)

As the closing credits roll, I believe the American audience would be stunned by chronicles of Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in American History. Now will the Non-Americans be equally stunned by the experience? Of course. I wouldn't say equally, but remarkably enough depending upon your sentiments about army-people. American Sniper puts forth the patriotism and heroism of U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle who is gifted with enormous talent and accuracy in shooting. With record number of Sniper kills associated with him, he saved countless lives on the battlefield and and had soon become a 'legend'. Now I don't want to draw any comparison with what is depicted in the movie and what actually happened, I will just review it as an independent film.
Chris's father told him and his brother to always be the 'sheepdog', the protector who will go to any extent to provide protection from the evil. Initially Chris was just a cowboy, but after watching US embassy attacks in Kenya on TV he decides he has got more to his life and joins Navy SEALs. At the same time he marries Taya (Sienna Miller) a woman who initially said to him she would never marry a Navy SEAL until she falls for Chris. His first deployment was in Iraq, where he faces a tough situation where a woman and kid try to attack them with grenade. With his pinpoint accuracy he takes both them down as his first kills leaving their troops safe. It does look plain and simple on screen, but from the point of view of the man about to pull the trigger whose decision is going to decide another person's fate its a whole different scenario. Over his first tour, Chris kills numerous people and keeps getting more and more recognition. He talks to his Wife who is pregnant over phone time to time. After returning from his tour, he and Taya have a boy. Despite being home with his family, Chris still faces the trauma of war zone and at the same time has determination to protect his country. After the 9/11 he is more determined to go back on field and goes on second tour to Iraq. But this time his wife worried about whether he will ever return. Plus, the enemy camp has deadly sniper who was an Olympic medalist and now an opposition for Kyle.
Clint Eastwood, as the director at age of 84 brings the realism of war ideally. The war action and shooting sequences are nicely done and edited. Technically the film is really strong, but I wish they did something better than the poor CGI Sandstorm in last part. Based on autobiography with same name, American Sniper does good character study of Chris Kyle and his emotions. Bradley Cooper seems to have put in a lot of effort for building the body apt for the role. Also his expressions on the battlefield have necessary aggression and the touch of conscience at the same time.I doubted the Academy for his nomination, but I was wrong. While character of Chris Kyle gets the necessary focus, but there is nothing interesting to talk about anyone else. Taya his wife, does nothing more than worry about Kyle most of the time. As for soldiers on battlefield, most of the people change over the different missions, leaving Chris the only character to deeply root for. The screenplay though I thought was not as great as the performance and is quite generic. Apart from the few war fight sequences there isn't much meat to fill up its run time. Still it runs for 132 minutes which felt like divided into 4 parts, each one for his each tour to Iraq. And each part starts becoming less and less interesting than the previous.I think we should have seen more development on Chris character when he is back home than on field. Also the war tension is missing mostly apart from few scenes.Like the one moment when Chris has to decide whether to shoot a small kid who tries handle a grenade launcher and he wishing badly that kid drops it, the scene was quite intense. There is lot of violence, one scene was difficult to handle, where a terrorist kills a boy drilling through his head. Oh God! Captures the savagery of the kind animals there are in this world. Another thing I did not like is ridiculously less use of background music, the experience would have been a lot more intense and filled with lot more emotions with a good score.
In the end, American Sniper is not very captivating all the way. Bradley Cooper's performance adds the necessary depth to character of Chris Kyle elegantly. While rest of the things don't match up, there is abundance of patriotism. Even if this is overused in films a lot, American Sniper works as a good biopic which doesn't decentralize from its main character. Definitely worth a watch.
RATING:[3/5]