Rolling Stone magazine said it takes a bite out of you, and that pretty well sums it up.

American Sniper  isn’t a film you’ll enjoy, but it’s one you can respect, even if you do leave the theater feeling maimed. The greatest overall compliment I’d give director Clint Eastwood is that he simply pulled the curtain back to show us a brave man on a brutal journey – no sermons from the left or the right; just a stark portrait which you can approve or condemn. Eastwood reports, you decide.

There’s lots to decide. Can a record-breaking sniper be both hero and killer? Do we say “mission accomplished” when we look at Iraq and Afghanistan? Are we framing and approaching the war on terror in the most productive way?

And what of Chris Kyle, the Navy Seal at the center of the story, raised in the Christian faith but having pre-marital sex, over-imbibing, swearing creatively, and shedding blood from over a hundred targets? Is he saint or sinner, an awesome guy or, as Michael Moore just pontificated with typical restraint,
a murderer?

No wonder the web’s buzzing.

Controversy Well Earned

I think Sniper lives up to the buzz. You stop breathing during the first two minutes, and other than a few choice lulls, you spend the next two hours frozen, heartbroken, appalled and scared all at once. Not many movies take you through the ringer like this one, so consider yourself warned.

Yet it’s all pretty simple. The film chronicles the adult life of a guy’s guy with a gift – sterling marksmanship on display from childhood – serving four tours of duty as a Navy Seal and breaking records in the process. (Witnesses verify at least 160 kills from Kyle; there are probably more.) The bulk of the film, based on his 2012 memoir American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History, covers his Iraq years, then briefly shows us the aftermath as Kyle rebuilds both life and family, finding meaning through mentoring fellow soldiers dealing with their own traumas.

And wow, does it show us. The camera never blinks, much as you sometimes want it to, with injuries mild and fatal shown up close and personal, and through it all Eastwood wisely keeps all his players from high-drama emoting. War’s hell, so he lets that speak for itself in every frame without any scenery chewing from the guys. Sometimes, in fact, the camera work seems so dispassionate you feel you’re watching a newsreel rather than an A-list film. The men are simply there, doing what needs to be done, trying to keep each other alive, finish the job, and
get back home.

“Home” is something never far from Kyle’s mind, which erodes more with each tour, even as he insists it’s all good. To my thinking, this is the core of American Sniper – not the field battles, but the personal ones, and maybe that’s why it’s connecting with audiences at such a record-breaking pace. We see enough of his marriage and kids to know there’s plenty of love there, but that won’t keep it immune from the stressors a sniper’s career puts a family through.

This, more than the battle scenes, is where the movie hits hardest. We’re shown a man routinely killing, then hoping to walk away from it intact. Impossible, the film says, then hammers its point. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder kicks in and Kyle withdraws from his wife, broods, explodes, and generally checks out, all the while answering “Fine” to every question he gets about himself. By the time I left the theater, I had to admire the man’s emotional survival as much as his physical one.

I admired his simplicity, too. Discussing the ethics of his work, he seems surprised anyone would question it, noting that there’s evil out there and someone has to stand up to it. Bradley Cooper in the lead role has so masterfully captured that simplicity of purpose that you find yourself relating thoroughly to a man facing dilemmas in battle that you’d never imagine, much less face yourself.

I Never Knew Cooper Had it In Him

Cooper’s amazing, hands down. Bulked up and buffed out for the role, he shows us an earnest man having to live with his lethal gift, and the close-ups of his face, scrutinizing a target while wrestling with the awfulness of what he’s about to do, are stunning. He underplays the role with precision, keeping emotions in check while somehow letting us know there’s a tsunami in his soul, an inner torture ready to blast out any moment. Watching his performance – Oscar nominated, by the way, and he’s got my vote – I was reminded of what Alfred Hitchcock once told the great character actor Martin Landau while directing him in North by Northwest: “Martin, you’ve got a circus going on inside you.”

So does Cooper, but the monkeys under his tent are Kyle’s personal demons, and by film’s end he makes us believe that if he hasn’t cast them out entirely, he’s at least tamed them, climbing back to a normal life only to have it insanely cut short. The film ends, in fact, with moving footage of his funeral procession and final salutes, a fitting end to a piece of filmmaking which is, at heart, a request that we honor those among us courageous enough to offer their protection, not by idealizing them, but by better understanding both them and the experiences
they endure.

In making this request, American Sniper succeeds handsomely. It leaves us sickened and inspired all at once, disgusted at what battle can entail, and bolstered by Kyle’s earnest devotion in the midst of it all. It reminds us what we’re still up against, and of what can be required from anyone bold enough to assess modern terrorism, stare it down, then say “Not on my watch.”

For that alone, if I were Eastwood, Cooper, or anyone else associated with this movie, I’d feel awfully good. Check it out yourself and see if you don’t feel the same.