Film Review: American Sniper

Born In The USA

Now that the Oscar nominations have been let loose on the world, it is time for me to catch up on all the films that I haven't seen which have been nominated for 'Best Picture'. Beginning my journey, albeit a very small one with only three films needing to be watched, is American Sniper, the new movie directed by The Man With No Name, starring Bradley Cooper, last heard as a gun-toting raccoon in last years' wonderful Guardians of the Galaxy. Shall we begin?

American Sniper focuses on the life of Chris Kyle, the "deadliest marksman in US military history", who during his time as a Navy Seal, racked up 255 kills. 160 of which were confirmed, whilst attempting to highlight the effects war can have on soldiers, both in a wartime environment and a 'normal' one. The word, "attempting", is probably the key fulcrum on which this review is based as the movie fails to paint a picture of how horrific war actually is, and instead, relies too many times on scenes that go full-on Call of Duty, with Black Hawk Down being the obvious inspiration, which in my mind, is something I have seen too many times before. 

In terms of the good, Bradley Cooper does a solid job portraying Kyle, whilst Sienna Miller, who subsequently has seemingly reappeared out of nowhere in American Sniper and Foxcatcher, does an equally as good job playing the role of the estranged wife who is caught between Kyle's love for her and his love for war. Aside from the two Kyles, the rest of the film is seemingly enriched with 2-D characters who come and go in relatively forgettable fashion, whilst the contrast between Kyle and the enemy sniper is rather poorly done and should have had more depth in order for me to actually care for the twisted relationship between the two. The word "depth", in general, springs to mind, as their simply wasn't enough in this film to justify its' two hour plus run-time, and it seemed to drag on and not really grip me like I wished it would. 

Overall, American Sniper, is a solid, yet unspectacular, flag-waving war film that attempts to show the true horrors and effects of war yet only succeeds in falling flat on its' face. Although it has been nominated for "Best Picture" at the forthcoming Oscars, it is probably the weakest of all the films in that category and in my opinion, should easily be replaced by Foxcatcher. 

Overall Score: 6/10

Lone Survivor - Review - SPOILERS

It's not rocket science, the trailer and the films name really do make the outlining plot obvious. If you've seen the trailer, you've seen the majority of the movie. Presented as an all American patriotic war film based on a true story, but the Lone Survivor is something far bigger. Based on the operation Red Wings, a 4 team squad have to take down a high profile Taliban target. With no comms, the strike team find there cover blown with no support or commanding orders. Left alone, it's a right for survival which costs the lives of 3 of the squad leaving only Mark Wahlberg's Marcus Luttrell to fend for himself.

The story is great. Once again, I'm not versed into the ins and outs of what actually happened and expect the odd embellishment from time to time, but there were a few bits that I was a little saddened by. With a lack of character development throughout, the death of the soldiers do very little to cause an emotional response. Running up to the outbreak of violence, characters are introduced but the movement is incredibly slow. Characters we meet are completely irrelevant and hold no emotion value while in this time, they should have focused on character progression rather than a slew of names and faces. One piece I really enjoyed was the representation of the Afghan people. Moving away from a typical "everyone of them is involved with the Taliban" approach, and taking a positive view and portraying it to a world through a form of media that normally attacks Afghanistan.

As the movie represented itself as an action movie, it's important to critique this. However, the first thing that I would like to talk about is the use of armour. I understand that they are given Kevlar armour which is supposed to withstand quite the impact, yet it appears that it does very little to stop a bullet when these guys get shot to shit. Now that is out of the way, the action is brutal. There is no other word to describe it. The wounds look real and the deaths are mortifying. One particular shot sits with me and will do for quite some time is the killing of one of the soldiers. After running dry on ammo and suffering multiple gun shot wounds, he props himself up against a tree. The shot expands to center his limp body. As he struggles for breath, Taliban draw closer and aim. Firing two shots that rip through the tree above his head, he doesn't flinch. The final shot hits Axe (Ben Foster) in the head and sends his head back into the tree only to drop forward seconds later. The lingering shot was amazing. Yet, for a movie at 15+ of age, it seems a little much. With action comes sound. With war comes loud noises. Microphones must have been peaking, at points it scares the living shit out of me because it's so sudden and really aided in immersing into the movie.

The movie is wonderful. Without digging into everything else too deeply, the acting was alright and visually it was gorgeous apart from the slow-mo team jump which felt generic and cheesy. But otherwise, Lone Survivor deserves a solid 8 out of 10. It's a great piece of entertainment and deserves a watch from anyone interested in the conflict and to any ladies out there, Taylor Kitsch was massive and Wahlberg didn't steal all of the screen time!

PS - Another short review as I'm in a race to catch up with The Walking Dead...So. Damn. Good.