American Snipers been a recent topic of debate. I of course had no interest in weighing in until Id seen the film. I also have very little interest in the politics behind it but I suppose they cannot be completely ignored. First as a film, it was okay... nothing impressive... honestly after Saving Private Ryan my judgment of a well executed battle sequence has been pretty demanding. The action sequences were eh... and since they took up such a large portion of the film this was a major detraction. Bradley Cooper was nominated for his third acting oscar for his very solid performance. He gained weight, he did the accent, he pulled off the archetypal solider hero role well and brought some depth to a rather boring character. The most interesting aspect of the film was watching the hardships slowly whittle away at a rather stoic man... unfortunately it being based on a real person there was only so far they could take this aspect. It wasnt Bradleys finest performance (American Hustle) or even his second best performance (The little seen The Place Beyond the Pines-- which in many ways probably prepared him to play this role) but it was a truly fine performance... easily the best I could imagine this boring (not as far as accomplishments obviously but in terms of him being a seemingly vanilla human being otherwise... as many quiet warriors are) role being portrayed. Clint Eastwood man... with such truly astounding films like The Unforgiven and Mystic River... or for a better comparison to this film Letters from Iwo Jima I really expect something better. It didnt have the clarity of seeing things from all points of view that Ive come to expect from him as an artist. In fairness it was a perspective piece from a soldiers POV and in that respect it was very successful. Everything was black and white... when a American was shot or the villains were hurting an innocent it was up close and in your face drawing your sympathy... whenever our hero killed someone it was far away and impersonal (even when it wasnt through the scope of the sniper rifle). It was some real classic, old school film making in that respect and it was well executed and probably not noticeable to the average movie goer. The controversy this film has been trending is humorous to me not because there arent legitimate reasons to gripe or not to gripe. The reason its humorous is because the film doesnt really pose any moral dilemmas aside from shoot the kid or dont... and go to war or stay with your family. It poses these issues immediately and follows this theme throughout. Its an action film (and only an okay one) with a strong performance at its core. The rest of the complaints have been about it brainwashing the public and minimizing the negative sides of the war... and my response to that is this isnt a strong enough film to change peoples minds no matter what their opinions were going in. I think all the discussions about the film began with people that were paid by studios to start controversy after the Oscar nominations to draw more attention to the film. It worked for a piece of garbage like The Interview.... why not a mediocre war film? Recommendations... ugh... I dont know... Joe Giuffre I know you wanted to discuss this after youve seen it. I keep coming back to the fact that it wasnt a very strong year for film...
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 02:04:39 +0000