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American Sniper Movie Review

American Sniper is a 2014 biographical war film directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper in the title role. It was the worst movie of 2014.

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“There are three types of people in this world:

sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs“

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Even after returning home from the war in Iraq, Chris Kyle, a SEAL sniper, cannot let go of the horrors he has experienced. This begins to affect his marriage and his life. Where to even begin with this horrendous piece of American militaristic propaganda? This film earned over half a billion dollars at the box office and it was nominated for six Oscars. And those nominations were the big ones, including Best Actor, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Needless to say, it was a hugely renowned movie at the time.

And that is where my biggest issue stems from. Hollywood would say that they are liberal, but they voted for this nationalistic movie from a conservative filmmaker. This just goes to show that when it comes to their foreign policy and interventionism, both liberals and conservatives are the same – very nationalistic. It’s the perfect film to showcase just how dangerous America is to the rest of the world.

Sienna Miller played a boring female love interest character and the Iraqi soldiers are depicted as villainous caricatures. Bradley Cooper’s protagonist is the only one who got at least some sort of arc, but even his arc was all wrong. There is this intense moment in the film where he was “humanized” as he let the Iraqi child go. But in my opinion he was obviously intending to shoot the child and he was ready to do it, so I still found his character and everything that he represents appalling. Cooper did deliver a very good performance and is the only objectively positive aspect in this film, but it was not enough to save it, not by a long shot.

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There is another very questionable and downright horrifying moment later in the film where one character literally states that the Americans are the sheepdogs “protecting” the innocent from the wolves because they are endowed with aggressiveness. This is the most apparent and unambiguous admittance of their imperialistic and racist attitudes when it comes to foreign policy and it was truly shocking to see it spelled out so bluntly.

Clint Eastwood is usually a great filmmaker, but here he succumbed to his worst tendencies, making the most American film in his career and the one that nobody outside of the US can really appreciate. In fact, I cannot ever imagine anyone outside this country liking this film as it represents to us all just how wrong their foreign policy is. The technical aspects here are solid, especially the sound and the execution of action scenes, but the movie is overlong and even discarding the nationalism on display and the horrendous story and messaging, the film would be very tedious and overly familiar regardless.

Bradley Cooper himself answered to the criticism directed toward the film’s messaging and he stated that those of us who criticize it missed the point. The point according to him is that we should all care more for these soldiers who go through the horrors of war and return home with PTSD. This is fine and all, but am I supposed to care about these soldiers who themselves chose their profession more than the innocent people and children who die in these wars?

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That is the takeaway here and it just goes to show that Americans will put their people first and foremost every single time. Nobody put them in this position to fight the wars on everybody’s behalf. They themselves chose to act this way due to their undeniable military might, which makes them the aggressive side. Hopefully, we will live to see the day when their military supremacy and interventionism end.