American Sniper

It shows Eastwood, at 84, in his finest directorial effort since the 2008 "Gran Torino," while painting on a much broader canvas. Utterly in command of his epic material, he films the Iraqi action in terse, tense panoramas with little cinematic editorializing, as if he were an old Greek or Hebrew God who is never surprised at man’s ability to kill his fellow men, or to find reasons to do so. Directing 34 films over 44 years, Eastwood has honed his craft to its essentials: make it seem as if the story is telling itself.

Eastwood, working from a script that Jason Hall adapted from Kyle's 2012 memoir, fuses the explosive and the sorrowful as only he can. That's why his film takes a piece out of you.

American Sniper is a superbly subtle critique made by an especially young 84-year-old.

The battle scenes are alternately tense and thrilling, especially during one climactic sequence.

Another war biopic opening on Christmas day, with tight, two-fisted direction by Clint Eastwood, and a compelling centerpiece performance by Bradley Cooper.

[Clint Eastwood's] gripping, incurious film gives the impression of having not so much been directed as dictated. It stares so fixedly down the rifle sight that it is finally guilty of tunnel vision.

The humble Kyle onscreen is Kyle with his flaws written out. We're not watching a biopic. We're watching a drama about an idealized soldier, a patriot beyond reproach, which bolsters Kyle's legend while gutting the man.

Superbly done. Bradley Cooper brilliantly captures the emotions and psyche of a soldier affected by the moral and ethical complexities of war. To the negative reviewers: We might not like the realities of what's behind this story, but these soldiers are the only reason we have the freedom to sit home in our comfortable, safe little houses, and criticize their actions. And those same critics presume to have all the answers as to how the soldiers should feel, think, and act in these situations; as if they have battle experience and understand first-hand the psychological effects of having to kill with the end goal of saving lives.

Chris Kyle, sniper extraordinaire and lightning rod for many reasons (some of which are entirely of his own creation), gets the up-close treatment in an appropriately controversial film. Much of the popular criticism centers around Kyle's casual, almost matter-of-fact tone about the inevitability of American military involvement in Iraq and a simplistic, one-dimensional perspective on the native combatants. From what I gather, much of that was toned down from his autobiography, on which this was based, and on the screen it's somewhat more excusable. In an industry that's already seen the likes of Rambo and Commando, it's hardly the first to commit that sin, though it does remove us a bit from reality and make the production's more grounded, thoughtful aspects a bit tougher to swallow. American Sniper's battle scenes are a major strength, intense and morally-exhausting, but occasionally they drift into idol worship and stretch to assure the audience that his strikes are justified. Kyle's descent from suave, charismatic bar-denizen to haunted, self-righteous battlefield legend is a difficult but effective journey, well-managed by Bradley Cooper in the leading role. The frequent hints and nudges about his struggles with PTSD on the homefront are nicely done, too, right up until the closing moments when the film spontaneously lurches into a tacky fairy-tale ending that felt so jarring and undeserved, I wondered if it might be a dream sequence. It's better than I feared it might be, but asks many more questions than it answers and quite often falls short of delivering on teased potential. As snapshots of a superstar's life behind the scope, and behind the battle lines, it works. As a finished thought on the man himself? Not quite.

it was so sad and to violent for younger viewers like babies and little kids the kids should never see this movie until they are older and are teens or adults.

I was hoping this film would focus on the morally doubtful decisions made in warfare, and the way soldiers cope with this stress post-war. Why? Because all the posters have a feeling of satire: big murican flags, big guns, brave soldiers. Unfortunately for me, that wasn't exactly satire and the whole film is full of American propaganda: Murica good, Iraqees evil. Shame on you, Eastwood.

Eastwood's worst directed movie ever, and Bradley Cooper is so bad in this that he has redefined what the word "acting" means in a bad way. It's just a ludicrously plotted, terribly paced borefest of a movie that probably looked better on the drawing board than it did in execution. It is also blatant propaganda for the USA - this wouldn't have looked out of place in **** Germany or North Korea, yet bizarrely it doesn't even do that right as the whole think makes the protagonist look like a complete maniac. Perhaps that's what Eastwood was going for - the maniac who was green lighted due to patriotic fervor or something - but the movie doesn't communicate that point well at all. Everything is so ambiguous, Anyway, you're not missing anything by not watching this. Watch The Hurt Locker again if you want something like this, but done competently.