Standard spoiler alert here. This post will go into details about the movie “American Sniper“. If you don’t want to know what happens in this movie you better stop reading now.
Growing up in a conservative family I’ve watched my fair share of war movies. Everything from old-time classics like “The longest day” and “Stalag 17” to modern war pictures like “Platoon” and “Saving Private Ryan“ so I think I know a thing or two about war pictures.
The essence of a good war movie involves a large dose of violence, a personal storyline, and a clear story arc that guides the viewer from one end of the picture to the other resolving all the issues brought up during the movie.
But of course war movies have evolved in the last 50 years and are now more complex and less clear-cut. As the viewing public has changed its collective opinion about war, movie makers have had to adapt their stories to suit the general public. Stories are no longer as simple as they once were. Plots are more nuanced and they often take multiple points of view in order to be more balanced and not make war look so idealized.
That’s why American Sniper was a bit of a surprise to me as it seems to return to the model of a fairly straightforward and simple narrative. The movie is based on the novel by Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. The story follows Kyle as he grows up in Texas and has a somewhat aimless existence as a rodeo cowboy. One day after hearing a news report about a terrorist attack Kyle decides to join the military.
After successfully completing SEAL training he meets his future wife, Taya, in a bar and after a brief courtship they decide to get married. During their courtship 9/11 occurs and the happy couple realize that their lives have just become more complicated. On the day of the wedding they receive word that Kyle will be deploying to Iraq.
Once in Iraq, Kyle has to use his skills as a sniper to stop threats to the common foot soldiers patrolling the streets. Sometimes this involve shooting women and children carrying bombs or grenades. He returns home from his first tour and seems to be more withdrawn from his wife and son. He watches YouTube videos posted by terrorist snipers shooting American soldiers and calls them “savages”.
On his second tour he becomes involved in the search for a terrorist leader called “The Butcher”. He finds an informant with a possible lead on the Butcher. He reports this to an intelligence officer and on their way to question the informant they run afoul of a terrorist sniper called Mustafa who has built his own impressive reputation. While Kyle and his team are pinned down by the Mustafa, the Butcher murders the informant in public and drives off.
After his second tour he returns home to see his daughter being born in the hospital. He becomes quite agitated and angry that the natal nurse is not paying sufficient attention to his newborn daughter.
Chris returns for a third tour. As he arrives he runs across his brother as he is shipping out back home. His brother tells Chris that Iraq is the worst place on earth and he’s glad to be going home.
During another mission to find the Butcher, Mustafa badly injures one SEAL and kills another. Kyle finally manages to kill the Butcher. The injured SEAL later dies during an operation. Kyle deploys back home and Taya and Chris attend the funeral. Taya doesn’t want Chris to return for a fourth tour but he says he has to. He believes that it is his obligation to his fellow soldiers to continue fighting. She tells him that she may not be around if he goes back again.
When Kyle returns to Iraq he finds that Mustafa has been shooting engineers at a construction site. Kyle and a team of snipers set up on a roof top to find and kill him. Mustafa predictably shows up and Kyle makes an impossibly long shot with his sniper rifle and kills Mustafa but this draws a small army of terrorists to attack the snipers on the roof. During the ensuing battle, Kyle finally decides that he has had enough of war and that if he survives he will go home for good.
Back home things don’t improve. Kyle has problems keeping his anger in check and is totally withdrawn from his family. He meets with a psychiatrist who encourages him to meet with wounded veterans and to address his own issues as he helps them. The therapy seems to help Kyle deal with his problems. In the last scene of the movie Kyle meets with another troubled veteran at a gun range. For an unknown reason the veteran murders Kyle.
The story itself comes from Chris Kyle’s point of view and how he saw the war as it unfolded around him. but Directors regularly take scripts and expand out stories to give the viewer more context and to help them understand what’s going on. I find it difficult to understand why Eastwood didn’t do that here. He certainly did this for his movies “Flags of our fathers” and the companion piece “Letters from Iwo Jima“. The two movies provided viewers with context and helped them understand not just what soldiers on the American side felt like but also on the Japanese side.
The thing that bothers me is that everything in “American Sniper” is told from one side. The “bad guys” are amalgamations of different real life people. They have few to no lines at all, and all of them wear black. The terrorists, or insurgents, or whatever you want to call them are all portrayed and called “animals” or “savages”. No thought is given to examining what these people are thinking or why they may have been driven to do such terrible things.
The political situation that led up to the war in Iraq is never explored and the course of the invasion is never really discussed. The Chris Kyle character remains steadfastly in support of the war and never questions whether they should be at war in Iraq or what the purpose of the war really is.
The home front is barely touched upon except when Kyle is home between tours, which I find odd as Chris Kyle’s widow was heavily involved in the movie.
Overall I find that Eastwood could have done a much better job on this movie. He has certainly directed much more involved and complex films in the past and in war pictures as well. So I find this to be a somewhat unsatisfactory effort from a great Director.
Recent Comments