MANILA, Philippines - A harrowing account of the tours of duty of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle who was deployed to Iraq, the war drama/biopic American Sniper directed by Clint Eastwood and starring a beefed-up Bradley Cooper, is a film filled with intense action sequences while also serving as a psychological portrait of the man honored as the most lethal sniper in US military history.
Based on Kyle’s autobiography (a best-selling book), as written for the screen by Jason Hall, the Warner Bros. Pictures release could be seen by some as a companion piece to Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker — these are films that help define an armed conflict with an ambiguous moral compass.
A struggling rodeo cowboy who is gifted with unusual marksmanship, Kyle puts his talent and skill to the test when he enlists after seeing Americans caught in the crossfire of Middle East terrorist acts. 9/11 validates the SEAL training he is then undergoing, fueling a determination to make things right for America when he is deployed to Iraq and operates as a sniper. His tours of duty are what make up the action sequences of the film, while the trials and tribulations of his wife and subsequent children, back home in Texas, make for the inner conflict that pushes Kyle to continuously redefine his commitment to the war cause. The psychological arc we witness swerves from total dedication to the armed conflict and saving the lives of his fellow soldiers to the realization that the obsession is at the root of his PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) whenever he is stateside and is rupturing any sense of family life and normalcy.
High marks to Eastwood for his staging of the Iraq action scenes, of giving us an intimate glimpse of the life of a sniper, of showing the inner conflicts that beset the very lonely military calling. And kudos to the film for developing something personal between Kyle and a legendary Iraqi sniper. Cooper gives a sterling performance as Kyle, while Sienna Miller as the long-suffering wife, Taya, is golden. Equally strong-willed while dedicated to her husband, Taya fights for him to reassess where his obsession is taking him. Weaving all these elements together, as well as giving us vignettes from Kyle’s early years, help viewers understand Kyle the person behind all the lethal “kills.”
What then emerges is a person both intense, yet vulnerable. And while the film is a compassionate look at the Iraqi conflict, we are constantly reminded of how some very basic questions also remain unanswered. Finally, we are haunted by the lingering regret of Kyle for the ones he couldn’t save — perhaps, not even himself.