Persuading the chair

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2015)

Well, I'm a huge fan of Eastwood, and had begun digging his work more so after he began directing. And to forgive an old man his eccentricities, I probably even stood up for him even after he talked to the chair at the last big RNC shindagig.
But, and to be fair, if one had thought that the stupidly titled 'Lone survivor' had something of a 'right' slant in terms of being pro-war and unabashedly gung-ho in terms of its (misplaced?) patriotism when it came out (I was one of those people who thought that), that movie doesn't have anything on this.
Another question that sometimes sprang in my mind, especially watching the initial 'conditioning' sequences, was if Eastwood himself was doing a 'Colbert' on us, and STO'ing (stating-the-obvious) on the evolution of the American soldier (and mercenary).
Unapologetic about its pro-war message, which, I'm sure, has as much to do with the 'original' work it was based on, about the 'legend' with the most number of confirmed sniper kills, Chris Kyle, this movie is completely underwhelming from start-end, and not just because of its completely predictable, by-the-numbers storyline and unimaginative screenplay, but also due to the fact that there is simply no arc of any kind, with the supporting actors just standing in and playing obeisance to the 'legend' on play throughout, just serving as those hangers-on in local mainstream flicks that have no other role than to just egg our hero on, waxing (once again, unimaginatively) eloquent about how great he is, or how great his deeds are, to anyone who'll listen. Cases in point - the sequence on the rooftop during the sandstorm, the VA guy meeting near a concession stand, Sienna Miller's final scene gratefulness on the 'legend' coming back to them (which goes completely against the grain of what her character stood for in quite a few of the earlier sequences - in her defence though, it might have been pages being filled from real life, but Eastwood has been a better film- maker than this cookie-cutter work testifies).
It also doesn't help that the key characters involved in the conditioning of the 'legend', his father and his brother (not directly, but by being his enabler of sorts) , and discarded ruthlessly as and when Eastwood needed that. Now, my question - if that was a decision of sorts, perhaps to make this more film-able, then why wasn't more attention paid to the so-called tense action sequences. There have been better examples of wartime movie-making, stuff like 'Black hawk down' or (shudder) 'Behind enemy lines' and the like. For someone who made the haunting 'Letters from Iwo Jima', this is a huge come-down, and I am not getting the decision made to even decide to film this one- note piece.
Having said that, Cooper gives it his all, and though it (ideally) should not overshadow any of the other best actor nominations out there, it is a good, sincere effort from him, and he's saddled by the burden of not being given more scope in order to showcase his talents more. It was also disappointing that his supporting roles were just mainstream tropes and not much else.
I have been vocally supportive of Eastwood's directorial work before, including lesser works like 'True crime', 'Blood work' and 'Changeling', but cannot support his work on this, or even his motivation to choose this as his directorial vehicle. This is the man that made 'Unforgiven', and even one of my favorite movies of all time (A perfect world), and he's telling us that he couldn't get even a smidgen of that angst into this movie, regardless of the book it was based on? Come on. Maybe I might have felt different if I were American, but I'm not too sure that makes a difference on appreciating a work of art.