When a movie is bad, there’s always a little something in the direction, or in the acting that I enjoy at least a little. One movie can still be dislikable but not unwatchable. It does happen that sometimes a movie is just so bad, that there’s nothing left to enjoy. A Serious Man by the Coen Brothers or My Own Love Song by Olivier Dahan are those kinds of movies for me. Now I can add American Sniper to that list.
Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) is a US Navy SEAL sniper who saves many lives during his tours in Iraq. Once he comes back he has a hard time adjusting to his urban life. While many declare that Clint Eastwood signed his best film yet, he might’ve just combined all the mistakes he made in his previous movies in this one. I mean, I’ve rarely seen a movie so flat and emotionless.
First, there’s the overused plot. A soldier that does and sees horrible things during a war, who has a difficult time coming home and leaving the war behind. We see movies on that subject every two years approximately, and they all look and feel the same. There’s rarely something new in the way it is treated. But I don’t know how he did it, Clint Eastwood managed to make this subject even less interesting that it already is. Eastwood cinema is completely goalless and without emotions. He doesn’t take part, or give an opinion, or try to deliver a message to an audience, something that has an impact on you afterward that makes you think. There’s nothing to talk about here. The entirety of American Sniper is just a succession of scenes, that never goes in depth within its story and that never creates a connection with an audience.
The actors are not helping American Sniper either. I don’t know what Bradley Cooper was trying to achieve, and I don’t know if it’s him or the poorly written script, but his character is so dull that you forget that you’re watching a biopic, and not some random movie about a random soldier. We’re never invited into his story, all emotions and meaning are stuck on the surface and there’s no deeper meaning underneath it. And the same goes with Sienna Miller, whose character serves no purpose in what is shown of Kyle’s life.
But I’m willing to admit that maybe I’m biased. After all, I’m French, and we don’t have the same cult of the soldier. So naturally, a movie depicting a man, whom I believe is hiding behind his war hero status to justify some of the atrocities he did, it all seem rather ridiculous and unfair. In my opinion, Chris Kyle is not a hero and he’s not a symbol. Additionally, I don’t know if one of the goals of American Sniper was to represent, through Chris Kyle, what soldiers in general feel at home and in the field, but if so, Eastwood ultimately failed. It all feels like a commercial movie, made at the last minute, as if they weren’t prepared and they just decided to show a bunch of different war scenes telling absolutely nothing, and add one of two personal life scenes, for good measure.
It’s flat and done without care. It’s been nominated for 6 Oscars, and to be quite honest with you, it isn’t fair to many other movies, actors, directors and screenwriters that truly deserved a nomination this year. After all, we can each have a different take on the movie, and apparently many people liked it. I may be harsh about American Sniper, but even if I really don’t recommend it, I’m pretty sure it’s not gonna stop any of you to make your own opinions about it.
Rating: 0.5/5
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