| Carl J. Bachus reporter |

Clint Eastwood is not what I would call a bad director, he’s a cold one. Nearly all of his movies express very little emotion; it’s just not built within the films’ respective structure. This is an issue for me as a filmgoer but it has never made me as uneasy as it did during his latest film, “American Sniper.”
Eastwood takes a story that is filled with stirring emotion and chooses to adapt it into a mashed-together mess favoring ideology over narrative weight.
The film portrays the true story of U.S. Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle (Academy Award-nominated Bradley Cooper,) a man brought up on pride in country and a comically overt sense of self-imposed heroism. He joins the good fight right before the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City.
To date Kyle is the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history and the film races through the major events of his life: his wedding, the births of his children and his four-tour attempt to take down a militant Islamist called “the Butcher” and an unnamed Olympian al-Qaeda sniper.
If it sounds like I am explaining the story to you, that’s because this is all the film does, it tells you the story in a much less interesting way than Kyle could have probably told you in his autobiography.
The few cinematic flairs that Eastwood does add to the overall narrative only register as ideological trappings meant – and I do mean meant – to rile up a conservative audience and make a liberal one uncomfortable. These moments of the film are frequent, heavy handed and devoid of dramatic weight.
A fight where a young Kyle finds himself defending his little brother on the playground, his wedding all feel insubstantial compared to the expressed emphasis placed on his career as a sniper. Not to diminish his military accomplishment, but it feels like celebrating his life or his time as a veteran counselor would have allowed for a more inviting, more resonant experience.
Instead, the film simply tries to shock the viewer into feeling a certain way. During the war portions, Eastwood flings visceral image after visceral image at the audience. But, instead of lingering on them and milking them for emotional resonance, he just kills another soldier or thrusts you into another firefight. This strips each event of anything that would evoke legitimate passionate feeling.
All that said, even within Eastwood’s conservative, arguably PTSD-shaming retelling of Kyle’s life, Bradley Cooper delivers a masterful performance as Kyle. Equal parts sympathetic and charming, Cooper’s portrayal of Kyle is magnetic even when the narrative is trying extremely hard to make you not like him. The supporting cast is serviceable but this is really Cooper’s vehicle. The movie around him should’ve been better.
Kyle’s life was a harrowing one, but “American Sniper” was hollow, ideologically biased and emotionally fraudulent. Even anchored by what is truly Cooper’s best, most effective performance to date, Eastwood’s direction and political sensibilities whittle an American legend’s life down to propaganda and that’s “Sniper’s” biggest sin: that the only instance that felt true and heartfelt was documentary footage of his funeral during the closing credits.
Chris Kyle deserved better.