Movie Review: American Sniper

2.5 stars out of 5

I thought the commercial for American Sniper was really, really good. The actual movie, on the other hand….

A little backstory on me deciding to see American Sniper last night. As you may know, I like going to the movies on Tuesdays, which used to be free for me, and is now a still-reasonable $6 at my closest theater, and $7.50 at a theater that’s about a 15-minute drive away. Reviewing the options, I planned to drive to see Whiplash. Then the Blizzard of 2015 was forecast, and it seemed I might not see any movie at all.

Well, it snowed, but wasn’t the huge predicted accumulation. Moviegoing was still on the table! I dug out my car pretty easily, but still didn’t want to drive. Most neighbors hadn’t shoveled and street parking would’ve been a pain in the ass upon my return.

OK, I could still walk to my local theater. Of those choices, I had interest in American Sniper, The Imitation Game, and The Theory of Everything. Metacritic had all three rated at 72. So I made my decision based on starting time: If I saw American Sniper, my closest pizzeria/Italian joint would still be open afterwards and I could get a chicken parm sandwich. To paraphrase Sam & Dave: Hold on, Clint, I’m coming.

Now, I’d say I’m a fan of Clint Eastwood. The first two decades of his directorial career were pretty damn solid. (I caught up with him about midway through that run, in the Sudden Impact/Pale Rider/Heartbreak Ridge era.) The last 20+ years, however, have been decidedly more up-and-down. Of his previous couple of movies, I thought J. Edgar was very good but that Jersey Boys was kind of crappy. I did like that one where he talked to a chair.

American Sniper is, in my opinion, more down than up. The commercial had me pretty hopeful. It looked like this might be a serious exploration of PTSD. Bradley Cooper—who, let’s not kid ourselves, is also having a real up-and-down career—could really sink his teeth into the lead role.

But instead of the heavy, downbeat movie I anticipated, this based-on-a-true story is presented as an old-fashioned army picture (well, Navy SEALS, anyway). A squadron of buddies hunts down a really, really bad dude. There’s a disturbing “first-person shooter” video game style to most of the action sequences.

During Clint’s career, war movies and mini-series have gotten significantly more nuanced, be it Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Band of Brothers, Generation Kill, Zero Dark Thirty, and even Clint’s two separate takes on the Iwo Jima story. Sure, maybe much of that is borne (on the 4th of July) from a post-Vietnam distrust of the military-industrial complex. But, I don’t know, the modern war flick—or at least the ones I go to see—just tend feel much more realistic than old black-and-white films.

American Sniper, despite its portrayal of a real-life, complicated person, didn’t feel very real to me. Even though much of it was filmed overseas, it often looked like it was shot on cheap Hollywood sets. I was impressed with one extended action scene, set in heavy dust, though that bit unfortunately ended with some heavy-handed symbolism.

Bradley Cooper does do a nice job in this, as the good ol’ boy who enlists late, tremendously excels as a SEAL sharpshooter, but is slow to realize the psychological toll his actions and surroundings are taking on him. But the script doesn’t give Cooper much opportunity to be great. And even though publicists successfully landed Siena Miller on some magazine covers for this movie, her performance is merely average.

American Sniper is a bit too flag-wavy/we-good-they-bad for my personal tastes, but that’s OK; it would be boring if I only interacted with art that I was in lock-step with. Still, I was a little annoyed that only lip service was given to another point of view, that evil exists everywhere, not just in the people we’re shooting at. And, without spoiling things, the story’s central problem is resolved way too quickly and easily—I actually found it kind of offensive to veterans. And believability is tossed out the window.

To top it all off, when I got back after the screening, they were turning off the lights at the pizza place; business had been slow all night. Jeez, if I knew I wouldn’t be getting a chicken parm for dinner, this review might have been all about Benedict Cumberbatch.