Instead of watching the first half of the Super Bowl, I sat down with a bootlegged (ohhhh arrest me) version of the new film American Sniper. You must have all seen the trailers for it but if you haven't, it follows the story of Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in all of United States military history. With Bradley Cooper as Chris, i was expecting a decent film.
But I was also expecting this film to be a disappointment in the matter that many military films today are practically propaganda for the US military. I was expecting another one of those films similar to the trash movies about the raid on Osama Bin laden or the, dare I say, disgrace to cinematography, Act of Valor.
But I was surprised.
American sniper was an incredible movie. In most respects, it was nothing near propaganda. It did not glorify military lifestyle. It did not make war look fun. And it didn't portray Chris Kyle as a perfect protagonist. It showed the horrific brutalities of war. Kyle's battle with losing close friends in the field and his fight with PTSD after returning stateside. Truly, a down to earth war film.
My only complaint being that there were moments of the film that portrayed all Middle-easterners to be an enemy in a way. There was no positive portrait of an middle-eartern throughout the film. The only exception being the member of Kyle's squad that speaks the language but he may have been American. I don't really remember. Even the Saudis that were being trained to fight insurgents are mentioned, and mentioned only once, in a sort-of-negative manner. In some sense, a demonization of any middle-easterner. But not too bad.
There were also allegations that director Clint Eastwood purposefully portrayed a link between the September 11th attacks and Iraq. But I personally didn't catch that.
Regardless, any of the small complaints i had, are small. Barely present at all. As a matter of fact, there is much more controversy over Chris Kyle's real life story compared to the film.
Coming from someone who once considered military service as a career path for some time, i am presently not very gung-ho about war or any escalated violence. But I found American Sniper to be a very powerful movie. I suggest if you have the spare time, to sit down and watch it.
It is a terrific film and a respectable tribute to one of the most famous men in US military history.
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