Film Review American Sniper

Introduction

So as you can tell by the title ‘Film Review: American Sniper’ this post is going to be a film review of American Sniper! Anyway, in my quest to see all the Oscar nominated movies before the Academy Awards is held in February. I went Friday afternoon to see the Clint Eastwood directed American Sniper starring Bradley Cooper.  Arming myself with some Ice cream I settled into my seat. Slightly off topic but why can’t the cinema get the temperature right??? I’m there wrapped in my coat eating ice cream, shivering! Good thing its dark in there I probably looked incredibly stupid.

So anyway thoughts on the film

Initially I found it highly entertaining and gripping. I though it had tension, suspense and that the cinematography was spot on. The desert sandstorm looked gorgeous with the sand whipping up a storm (funny that, you would expect that in a sandstorm!). There were fine performances from Bradley and Sienna Miller, once I worked out it was her! I think she looks fab with brown hair; she looked so different. I kept looking at her thinking, “I know that face but what’s her name again?” I’ll be honest I actually got distracted by it, racking my brain trying to work it out.

On the drive back from the cinema the BF and I discussed the film and after saying what we liked about the film we naturally moved on to what we didn’t like about the film. We both felt that the film was a propaganda tool that isn’t really necessary at the moment. I appreciate that the film was from the viewpoint of Chris Kyle THE ‘American Sniper’ but the ‘Terrorists/Villains’ of the film were very 1 dimensional and I was a little disappointed by that. Without spoiling the film they made the Iraqi people in the film look sinister. So sinister that they will use their children to fight in the war for them. “Look how evil terrorist are! Look how they treat their children? We have every reason to be in their country killing them, they are savages after all” Rolls eyes to me it was look how America can save the day, see how we need to protect ourselves from these people… All we hear on the news in the media is ISIS and islamic states and terrorism and fighting the ‘war on terror’

Now this very well my have been the case; this, fighting the war on terror! ( I have my own theories on this, but that’s off topic and probably for another post. If people are interested in me writing it-Let me know) but Mr Eastwood made no attempt to flesh the villains out and show why they may have done this. There are two sides to every story.  I like a good villain and sometimes root for them, but seeing as this was based on the experiences of Chris Kyle I knew the film would not want me to do this. But, and its a big but….

They did not show anything relating to the Bush Administration and what the US Government ‘told’ the world and more importantly Great Britain to get us to join them in fighting a war I don’t think we had any reason to be involved in other than being up and underneath the US of A; to get their citizens and ours to fight in this war over ‘weapons of mass destruction’.

Instead Bradley Cooper portrayed  Chris Kyle as a guy who follows a simple philosophy of ‘God, Country and family’. That his country is the beautiful and it is his role to protect it and the people in it. I dunno. I can see why it has been nominated for best picture, best actor in a leading role and Film Editing as all of these things were plus points for this movie.

For me and the films I have seen thus far, Eddie Redmayne should get best actor in a lead role out of those nominated, but I will do my Oscar picks though in another post.

Rating:

I think I will give this film a 7/10

I have added a sound cloud link to Korey Coleman who reviews films with his friend Martin. I have been listening to these guys for a while since they were doing spill reviews. If you are in the market for film reviewers definitely give these guys a listen. There rating system is brilliant and they have an extensive film knowledge bank.

What do you guys think of ‘American Sniper’ was the ending a shock for you? Was the film boring? did you enjoy it?Do you agree with my comments? What you think of Korey’s sound cloud? Let me know what you think, I would love to hear your views….

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