Eastwood's ambitious 'Sniper' misses the target by that much
Clint Eastwood's ambitious military bio-drama "American Sniper" hits with the canny craftsmanship we've come to expect from the veteran filmmaker, especially when dealing with action movies involving big guns.
There's a lot to admire in this Oscar-nominated drama based on the life of U.S. Navy SEAL and master sniper Chris Kyle, considered the deadliest sniper in American military history with 160 official kills, and another hundred or so not-so-official kills.
Actor Bradley Cooper packed on about 40 pounds to play the Texas-bred Kyle, and his performance - which earned him a best actor Oscar nod - is a work of transitional magic. Cooper nails the accent, the swagger, the eventual beard, even a telling quizzical expression the character musters when digesting ideas that challenge his thinking or authority.
Still, even for an Eastwood project, "American Sniper" becomes a problematic work that dilutes its gut-gripping, conscience-blanching opening sequence with an episodic barrage of military confrontations involving dehumanized enemy targets.
"American Sniper" opens with a zinger of a dilemma. At war in Fallujah, Kyle undergoes a baptism by fire when he must decide to shoot or not shoot a woman and boy as they approach U.S. troops with an explosive device. Are they bringing it to them? Or attacking?
We hear gunfire and whoosh! We're way back in Texas where young Kyle brings down his first kill, a deer. Under the guidance of his tough, religious father, Kyle learns there are three kinds of people: sheep, wolves and sheepdogs. Dad insists both his sons be sheepdogs, the protectors.
As an adult, Kyle messes around with women and rodeos for a while, but gets matrimonially serious when he meets a feisty tavern pickup named Taya (an impressively multidimensional Sienna Miller).
The morning of 9/11, Kyle watches the twin towers collapse. Next thing you know, he's off to help rid the Middle East of "evil" by becoming a SEAL in a swift and economic montage of brutal training exercises. (In one of the movie's quirks, much is made of Kyle being an "old man" at 30, even though the real Kyle joined the Navy at 25.)
Once in country, Kyle racks up an impressive number of kills and becomes known as "The Legend." (In real life, enemy forces eventually offered a bounty for Kyle, but it was never collected.)
Restless and eager, Kyle joins Marines on a house-to-house search for an enemy leader called "The Butcher" for what he does to U.S. sympathizers with his electric drill.
But the biggest baddie in Iraq turns out to be an enemy sniper who once served as a marksman at the Olympics.
Syrian-born sniper Mustafa (Sammy Sheik) becomes the movie's Hollywoodized arch-villain. In a modernized wild-West quick-draw contest, the two face each other at a mile apart to settle once and for all who's the fastest - make that the steadiest - shot in the Middle East.
"American Sniper" devolves into episodic fire fights, interrogations and split-second decisions that doubtless will gratify action movie fans who expect something less introspective from Eastwood's Malpaso Productions than "The Hurt Locker."
Eastwood, working from Jason Hall's adaptation of Kyle's book (with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice), treats "American Sniper" with reportorial detachment, refusing to offer a perspective on Kyle until the last chapter when the shooter finally returns home and tries to fit into American society, but can't see how the war has stolen his domestic soul.
Kyle is warned early on that war is "like hanging on to an electric fence." It gives you such a jolt that you can't hang onto anything else.
The addictive allure of combat was covered expertly in "The Hurt Locker," offering a dramatically stronger ending than the short-shrifted "American Sniper."
On Feb. 2, 2013, Kyle and a companion were killed at a Texas shooting range by 25-year-old Marine Corps veteran Eddie Ray Routh. Kyle had taken Routh to the range presumably to help him deal with war stress.
Eastwood shows us none of this.
He dispatches Kyle with a brief and undetailed note on the screen. Clean. Distant. Impersonal.
Just like a sniper's shot.
“American Sniper”
★ ★ ½
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Luke Grimes, Jake McDorman, Kevin Lacz
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated R for language, violence, sexual references. 134 minutes