Review of American Sniper (2014) by Opinionatedguy — 04 Feb 2015

I tried my very best to review this movie without putting in my political opinions. But I have to say something about this movie.

This movie is a war propaganda movie. If you think showing dead bodies with blood and having one character against war itself is considered enough an anti-war movie, then I am afraid you’re wrong. I believe that the director of the movie Clint Eastwood is an anti-war person despite being a Republican and he tries to deliver his anti-war message to the audience. But when the message is lost in the audience and instead encourages more war and Islamphobia, then I am afraid his so-called anti-war message is not delivered clearly.

Speaking of Clint Eastwood, his direction in this movie is okay. I have seen far better directing on war movies.

The characters in the movie are utterly unlikable and uninteresting. The main character Chris Kyle is really hard to sympathize and relate to especially that the Chris Kyle in real life turns out to be a huge dick. Despite that, Bradley Cooper delivers a really good performance that it’s almost uncanny to the real Chris Kyle.

Not all movies based on a real person has to be accurate but when this movie made Chris Kyle a hero with little to no flaws when he is a huge dick in real life like I said earlier, that kind of inaccuracy is unfair and biased.

The only parts I liked about this movie was how Chris Kyle dealt with his PTSD and it felt realistic without being over the top. However I feel like these scenes were underdeveloped and I needed more of him struggling with his PTSD.

Lastly, I don’t think this movie is worthy a Best Picture nomination for this year’s Oscars. It’s just another war movie that brings up nothing new to the table. It’s just overrated in Oscar terms for me.

American Sniper is not a movie for everyone and in my opinion it’s very overrated. I am not stopping you from watching this movie but keep in mind while watching is that this movie has a one-sided depiction of war and the real-life version of Chris Kyle is not a nice human being.