Review of American Sniper (2014) by Gunnyart — 15 Jan 2015

Please don't assume by the mediocre score that I am in anyway less than thrilled that they made this movie. In fact the most likely explanation for my low score was the incredibly high expectations I had for it and my anxious anticipation to be rewarded with a visual representation of the book that I loved so much.

For starters I am navy combat veteran though I never came under enemy fire, much less experienced anything remotely reminiscent of what CK underwent. I have read the book a couple times and the thing that gets me about the book is how much (in spite of our very different experiences) I related to his experience and to him personally. I didn't get that with the movie. The impossible task of adapting an autobiography for film is the inability to capture the voice in the authors head. I also was distracted by Bradley Cooper as CK which isn't any fault of Mr. Cooper's other than being a familiar face. Time constraints obviously meant that large swaths of the story had to be cut, but I would have preferred tackling fewer accounts but developing them completely. Chris Kyle was far to complex a man to have his life told in cliff note form. I also was distracted by some Hollywood bad habits as pertains to gun play but nobody but a nerd like me cares about that stuff.

I was so invested in this being good that I had nowhere to go but down.

My favorite part of the film was the news footage at the very end. That could have easily been a mini documentary in it's own right I would have stayed an extra hour to watch.

I guess to sum up I anticipated getting emotional during the film but it wasn't until the credits that I shed a tear.