Review: AMERICAN SNIPER

AMERICAN SNIPER  (WAR DRAMA/BIOPIC) 
1.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller
Rated R for strong and disturbing war violence, and language throughout including some sexual references.
132 minutes
Verdict: A disappointingly bland and awkward biopic more interested in worshiping its subject than telling his story, AMERICAN SNIPER features a fine central performance by Bradley Cooper, but it's not enough to elevate the film above its lackluster direction, haphazard editing and a corny script.
YOU MAY ENJOY AMERICAN SNIPER IF YOU LIKED:
LONE SURVIVOR  (2013)
ACT OF VALOR  (2012)
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT  (2000)
THE HURT LOCKER  (2009)
ZERO DARK THIRTY  (2012)

The teaser trailer released last October for Clint Eastwood's AMERICAN SNIPER, a two-minute scene taken directly from the film, of U.S. Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) deciding whether or not he has to take out a woman and child holding a grenade, possibly preparing to use it against a U.S. military convoy.  These two minutes on their own were searingly tense, thought-provoking and ambiguous, and it could have been a pretty good two-minute short film.  In comparison, the 132-minute film itself is incoherent, poorly written and awkward.  It's very disappointing.
Based on Chris Kyle's controversial best-selling memoir American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, co-written with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice, the story follows Kyle from his childhood in Texas and a brief career as a rodeo cowboy, before he enlists to become a U.S. Navy SEAL upon seeing news coverage of the 1998 United States embassy bombings.  While on leave, he meets Taya Renae (Sienna Miller), the woman who becomes his wife shortly before Kyle is deployed to Iraq.  Over four tours of duty, Kyle accumulates an unprecedented 160 confirmed kills out of 255 reported as a sniper, earning him the nickname "Legend" from the Marines and general infantry who he protects by taking out Iraqi insurgents from a distance.  However, his devotion to the war puts a strain on his family, who rarely see him, and when they do, his interests are elsewhere.
In a truly odd plot device, a villain has been inserted, a Syrian-born sniper for the Iraqis called "Mustafa" (Sammy Shiek, whose IMDb profile is a list of typical villainous Hollywood Arabs), who seems to show up sniping U.S. soldiers at every other spot that Kyle is.  Mustafa is supposed to be the "big bad", but beyond a couple brief mentions that he was in the Olympics for Syria prior to the war, he's almost comically arcane as a character (using the word "character" loosely).  There's no meat to the non-American presence, no motivation beyond them being "evil" and "savages", no point.  It is simply the vaguest possible representation of opposition; they're evil so they do evil things.
Kyle, on the other hand, is frustratingly vanilla, a boy scout of a man who kills dozens of people, including women and children, but only regrets how many people he can't save, and everyone except the cardboard cutout bad guy insurgents worships the ground he walks on.  He's not a man, he's a myth, and what could have been a really interesting character piece is a bland advertisement for Navy recruitment lacking in credible perspective.  As Kyle, Bradley Cooper gives a committed performance that plays against type, and it's nice to see him branching out, but it's difficult to get on board with the actual character.  Watching the grandiose, heroic vision of war, it brought to mind the words of Jesus of Nazareth, "...all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword," words that unfortunately are all too appropriate in this case.

 Sometimes it's difficult to differentiate between certain shortcomings of a film that can be attributed to either the director, editor or writer, but it's safe to implicate all three in the case of AMERICAN SNIPER.  The screenplay, written by Jason Hall (whose other writing credits are SPREAD (2009) and PARANOIA (2013)), is clumsy and ham-fisted in its adoration of its subject, and the dialogue, perhaps not helped by some of the deliveries, is blunt and occasionally silly.  The editing, by Joel Cox (who's been Eastwood's regular editor since 1977's THE GAUNTLET) and Gary Roach, is fine in terms of individual scenes, but the picture as a whole lacks any clear through-line, mostly assembled out of assorted war scenarios and marital tension without any context to make it mean something.
Steven Spielberg was originally signed on to direct the movie before dropping out, reportedly due to budget concerns, and one thing that Clint Eastwood definitely is, for better or worse, is an economical filmmaker.  Eastwood can direct a good movie, in fact, he can direct great movies, and has, in particular his revisionist westerns like THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES and UNFORGIVEN.  Lately though, a lot of his filmmaking is lacking in passion or investment; he's become famous for his fast-and-loose shooting style, rarely doing more than a single take for a scene.  There's been some talk of a scene in AMERICAN SNIPER involving an infant that looks less than convincing, and while it doesn't look as bad as it's been cut out to be, it definitely looks weird and could have been fixed with multiple takes.  This is not an isolated case either.
The only totally competent aspects that keep AMERICAN SNIPER from being an actual disaster are Cooper's performance and the production, which makes the most of its $60 million budget, including some solid, if generic, battle action.  There's a fascinating story to be told from the life of Chris Kyle, but AMERICAN SNIPER refuses to tell it, and instead is too busy going through the motions as an excuse to worship its subject in a bland and bullish disappointment.