American Sniper

 

In his 2012 autobiography, ex-soldier Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in US military history, talks of his reported 160 kills in the Iraq war like this: “There’s another question people ask a lot: ‘Did it bother you killing so many people in Iraq?’ I tell them, ‘No.’ I loved what I did...I’m not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun.”

Director Clint Eastwood explains that his film adaption of the autobiography, American Sniper, shows the plight of a soldier, just providing a character study. It is true that a movie does not have to carry a moral message, but it probably cannot be helped with one about war – particularly such a recent one. Or can it remain a piece of entertainment that sits on the moral and political fence? Can it just show the horror of war and the ridiculous macho and ignorant behaviour of a group of US soldiers and let the audience make their own mind up about what they are seeing?

Some twitter reactions have included quotes such as ‘American sniper makes me wanna go shoot some fuckin Arabs’ followed by three charming gun emoticons and ‘Nice to see a movie where the Arabs are portrayed for who they really are – vermin scum intent on destroying us.’ The film can very easily be taken this way; I very much doubt Eastwood or Bradley Cooper, who plays Kyle in the film, would approve of this barbaric mindset but a film that portrays a stereotypically right wing naive American, who sees good and evil in black and white, as a hero and all Iraqis as two-dimensional baddies, was bound to be pushing its luck. Perhaps Eastwood thought that he done his duty in showing the POV of those versus the American military, in his two films about the battle of Iwo Jima in World War Two - Letters from Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective, Flags of Our Fathers from the USA’s.

 

Eastwood has directed some cracking films, having a particular great run from 2003’s Mystic River to 2009’s Invictus, before the appalling Hereafter ended the seven film winning streak. Politics and morals aside, even with Hereafter in mind, American Sniper is surprisingly badly made. It has nothing new to say for a start, it is startlingly unoriginal (the most original and interesting part of Kyle’s life, when it comes to making a film about it, was summed up in a sentence between the last shot and the end credits). Most of the scenes at home in America between Kyle and his wife (played well enough by Sienna Miller) are actually cringe-worthy in their unoriginality, over-sentiment, simplification and totally fake babies. Also, the underdeveloped bad guys, including his rival sniper Mustafa (a rivalry fabricated for the film) who had no lines but was always accompanied by stereotypical action film-type baddie music.

It may have been a character study, as Eastwood claims, but things were left out of the film that clearly point towards painting this man as an American beauty rather than an American psycho – such as his lies or, worse, his actions. Kyle claimed he shot dead two armed men who wanted to steal his truck, that he travelled down to New Orleans and killed thirty “bad guys” in the chaos following Hurricane Katrina, and that he punched former Minnesota governor and wrestler Jesse Ventura after Ventura disparaged the Navy SEALs; all of which there has been no evidence for. Plus apparent quotes such as “I don’t shoot people with Korans. I’d like to, but I don’t.”

But then, I didn’t know the guy. Perhaps he was lovely. Seth Rogen made a great point about the film, though, observing that American Sniper “kind of reminds me of the movie that’s showing in the third act of Inglourious Basterds,” referencing the Nazi propaganda film that glorifies a German sniper in Tarentino’s movie. And he is right, it is exactly what it feels like. An unpopular war needs a facelift and this is the film for it. Okay, we are not all going to fall for it, but how many of the people who have helped make the film so much at the box office have done?

American Sniper is showing in Nottingham cinemas now.

American Sniper Official Website