American Sniper review (2015)

This film has been getting mixed reviews everywhere, some people hate it, some people love it and I must say with this film I am closer to the second option. This film is a great return to form for Clint Eastwood and it is a film I think people should see.

This film documents the life of Chris Kyle who is the deadliest sniper in the US history with almost 200 confirmed kills. It shows his tours in the war and how he reacts when he gets home with this family.

Now Bradley Cooper is fantastic in the role and I truly believe he believed he was Chris Kyle and that he wanted to be as close to the real person as possible. He got all the mannerisms right and made himself to be a likeable character even though what he was doing could be seen as bad. Cooper truly does deserve his Oscar nomination for best performance and it is nice to see he can pull off the dramatic roles alongside his more comedic roles.

Siena Miller plays his wife and she does a great job too trying to be a rock in his life even though he is barely around. You felt for her character and what she was going through and you wanted him to see how much he was hurting her and their children. In the film there is a rival sniper that is set up and they gave him a bit of back story and he was a cool character even though you felt like he wasn't overly important. Most of the supporting cast though wasn't interesting and they really failed to stand out in this film.

The story about Kyle is really interesting and his character is shown to be a legend but Eastwood tries to bring him more down to earth and just like a regular person in these firefights. also I liked how it looked at some of the trauma that comes out of war even though I think their could have been a little more. However, Eastwood does treat this situation mostly as very black and white when his job is in fact completely grey. I wish they had gone a little bit more into the morality of the character and this unique individual.

The script was great and Eastwood managed to fit in the right amount of drama blended with a bit of humour to make this story feel real and make the characters feel like real people which was essential in this film.

The style of the film was beautiful and it didn't over dramatize wary and Made it out to be the dark battlefield that war really is. It was gritty and real which was necessary due to it being a true story.

Overall this is a great war film that should be seen.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5bP1f_1o-zo
This is the trailer for the film.

Final rating - 8/10