AMERICAN SNIPER : Tuesday 27th January 2015.

Nominated for six golden statues at the upcoming 2015 Academy Awards, I saw 'AMERICAN SNIPER' earlier this week at my local multiplex with a bunch of mates. Like the other films that this one is up against in the Best Motion Picture and Best Actor categories this is a very solid screen telling of this true story set against the back drop of the War in Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11. Directed by Clint Eastwood, this was at first attached to Steven Spielberg, and I have to say I think this would have been a very different film had Spielberg not passed it up, despite his success with the likes of 'Private Ryan' and 'Schindler's List' - his other dramatic war time fare.

Here Eastwood has returned to the form we have not seen in a while, demonstrating his prowess behind the camera with a deft touch that sticks to the fundamentals of the story, does not over dramatise, and concentrates on the main character traits of his key subjects against a backdrop that is gritty, intense, emotional and immediate. Having not read the book upon which this film is based, I am told by those that have that there are some key departures from those written words - but hey, that's Hollywood and sometimes you can't let the truth get in the way of a good story!

And so this is the story of Chris Kyle (played out brilliantly by Bradley Cooper and never better) - a small town Texan kid growing up in a disciplined environment with his subservient Mum & strict God fearing authoritative Dad, and younger brother with dreams of becoming a cowboy. He attends church, respects his parents and his elders and learns to shoot from a young age - killing his first deer on a hunting trip with his father when he is about ten years of age. Growing up he leads a country life as a cowboy with his brother, drifting in & out of relationships, drinking beer, and riding rodeo. In the lead up to his 30th birthday he sees news footage on the TV of a terrorist attack against Americans on foreign soil from an unknown enemy - this prompts him to join the Navy SEALS to help safeguard his beloved country.

What follows is the obligatory training camp montage where he is trained to within an inch of his life, and toward the end of this he meets Taya (Sienna Miller) in a bar, and they eventually marry. Their marriage comes in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and following the wedding and a brief honeymoon he disappears off to Iraq on his first tour of duty as the 'American Sniper' of the title.

His first kill on active duty is a young boy who exits a building with his mother - beneath her clothing she conceals a large looking anti-tank grenade which he identifies through his rifle sights. The woman mishandles the device as they move toward advancing US soldiers and an oncoming tank amongst the rubble of a war torn city. The boy runs with they grenade lurching toward the tank but is taken out by Kyle, and then the lads mother, in quick succession before the missile can reach its intended target. This sets the tone and tells us we are witnessing a cool, calculating, conscience free soldier doing what he does best, and protecting his colleagues, his country and his family ultimately, and can do so without hesitation. As his first tour progresses Kyle gains a reputation for his sharp shooting and in so doing saving the lives of countless fellow soldiers who all feel a debt of gratitude toward him, earning him the moniker of 'The Legend'.

He returns home after his first tour and Taya is pregnant with their first child. Following their son's birth, Kyle returns to Iraq for his second tour for more of the same - taking out insurgents with sharp shooting military precision time and time again. He does so a third time and then a fourth and amassing a confirmed kill record of 160, making him the most successful sniper in US military history! But each time he returns home, the emotional scars of battle are deeper. Kyle is fractured, distant, uncommunicative and clearly the strain of his job, what he has witnessed and the pressure to live up to the expectations of a 'hero' are a very heavy burden takings its toll on Taya, his young son and his second child, a daughter.

He is a driven man - driven by his his duty to God, to his country and to his family - in that order, and, to take out an insurgent sniper who is acting against him, and who is intent too on taking out Kyle. This sniper has become Kyle's own private obsession and partly the reason why he feels compelled to return because he stands in the way of a high-level evil drilling killing lunatic of a man known as 'The Butcher' and has been responsible for killing many of Kyle's buddies in the line of active duty. We learn that the insurgents have placed a significant bounty on Kyle's head, and so it is his personal crusade to either kill or be killed.

All of this continues to take it's toll on Kyle's mental and emotional state that he bottles up inside him as each tour comes & goes and he witnesses more & more the horrors of modern day combat and close quarter warfare. Eastwood doesn't spare the body count either on each side as friends and foe are sacrificed all in the name of freedom, but, there are no political statements here, no flag waving, no Uncle Sam spraying Iraq with a can of whoop ass! This story is Kyle's story, told through his eyes and the impact of war upon one man and the repercussions of it on those closest to him. Cooper gives a bold and convincing turn as the war torn, battle scared, emotionally fractured soldier just doing what he thinks is right. Sienna Miller too is solid as the left at home wife and mother torn between her love of her husband and her family but unable to reconcile what he does, why he does it, and for whom ultimately.

A must-see film that ranks up there with 'The Hurt Locker', but seen from a very different perspective, and probably one of the boldest accounts we have yet seen on the silver screen of the Iraq War and its direct and indirect impacts.

   

-Steve, at Odeon Online-