American Sniper - Film Review

Based on the true story of U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle, considered one of the best snipers in American history, American Sniper follows his time in Iraq killing brown people because of patriotism! It's directed by Clint Eatwood, written by Jason Hall and stars Bradley Cooper. After the September 11th attacks in New York Chris Kyle decides that no one's going to fuck with America on his watch and he can't wait to get out there and kill him some ''savages'', America, fuck yeah! It's a film about the horrors of war and why they're necessary, it's the U.S. military's Passion of the Christ, if you will.

There's a serious lack of equally distributed humanity in American Sniper, it covers the mindset of an American patriot of slightly below average intelligence and that's it, the subject matter is not dealt with appropriately. The opening scene is Bradley Cooper posted up atop a building with his sniper rifle providing cover for his military counterparts and what we assume is a mother and her child come into view, it becomes clear that they're suicide bombers and Cooper takes them both out, that's the film, is this okay morally, yes it is, killing children is necessary sometimes, the end.

There's absolutely no sense of equality in the portrayal of Iraqi's in American Sniper, they're depicted as scowling savages who lack any hint of humanity and none of them are to be trusted! It's offensive and it breeds hatred, I can imagine beefed up American patriots/morons cheering at this film like yeah, fuck them fucking Iraqi savages, America, fuck yeah! It plays on people's emotions and does nothing to serve the wider and more inclusive narrative, it's just a two hour long fist pump in the air for blinkered American ideologies.

I think a more interesting and realistic approach to the story would have been highlighting what a fractured individual Chris Kyle was, we get a slight glimpse of his childhood and it didn't look good but all hero narrative aside, he seemed to enjoy what he did, more focus should have been spent on that. It's also worth mentioning and slight spoilers ahead if you didn't know but the real Chris Kyle was killed by an American veteran suffering from PTSD, all the film does to address this is end with one line of text to the effect of 'oh and by the way this happened', really? You're not gonna expand on that at all?

Kyle himself seemed to be suffering from PTSD but again the film just breezes over it like 'he had PTSD, he got over it', there's just nothing to be learned here, that's the problem! As a film it's sufficient, it's fine, Cooper's performance was good and it's entertaining enough but unfortunately when dealing with subject matter like this it needs to possess some sort of tact, and it doesn't. American Sniper is the equivalent of watching a Call of Duty Modern Warfare sniper head shot compilation on YouTube and playing the American national anthem over it.

All in all I can't recommend this film, if you're a hardcore film fan it probably won't land with you anyway, if you're a casual fan you could susceptible to its muggy ideologies and if you're an Iraqi it's down right offensive! I expected better of Clint Eastwood, I don't know why other than I'm a fan of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly but still, it's a shame. I'm gonna give American Sniper 5.7/10, watch Zero Dark Thirty instead!

What did you think of American Sniper?