Film: American Sniper
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller
Director: Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood’s newest film addresses a subject that has become a magnificent obsession war and patriotism. Based on the memoir/autobiography of US Navy Seal Chris Kyle (written with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice), the film stars a hunky Bradley Cooper as the titular American Sniper, Cooper’s Kyle captures wonderfully well, the moral dilemmas that arise from the battleground and the need to protect homeland, hearth and brothers-in-arms.
As Eastwood helms it, the film brings out the toll exacted by war, both physical and psychological. Death is grim reaper and sharpshooter who signed up four “tours” (Operation Iraqi Freedom, Fallujah which is overrun by the malevolent ISIS) experiences the death of buddies just as the Iraqis experience deaths of near and dear ones. Unsurprisingly, there is a price on his head ($180,000 bounty).
Back home in the US of A where he tries to be a good spouse and dad, the sharpshooter’s wife Taya Renae (Sienna Miller, lovely in a brunette hairdo) also undergoes fear, anxiety and worry — why do you have to go back?
As he tells her, his mission is to protect his country and his fellow soldiers. But the war exacts its own toll. It is the battlefield he can’t leave behind.
Eastwood has always been a flag-bearer and he makes Kyle the central figure with some attention devoted to his wife. Other characters are secondary, even the traumatised ones, American or Iraqi. American Sniper is replete with themes of self-sacrifice, bravery, courage and patriotism. Grippingly told, it is a must see.
ronitatorcato@gmail.com
Ronita Torcato
