Led by an absorbing Bradley Cooper, American Sniper is a powerful story that details the heavy personal ramifications that comes with being a legend of war, with Clint Eastwood’s straight shooting, masculine direction capturing the totality of a soldiers experience without any filter, pretence or agenda.  

Navy Seal Chris Kyle has the distinction of being the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history. With 4 tours of Iraq and 160 confirmed kills to his name, the potential to mythicise Kyle’s accomplishment is high. Thankfully Kyle himself underwent the task of cutting through the BS and detailing the harsh realities that comes with serving ones country in his bestselling autobiography, that has now been adapted for the screen by Jason Hall (in a major step-up from last year’s dismal Paranoia), and directed by Clint Eastwood who breaks his streak of bad films (Hereafter, J. Edgar, Jersey Boys) by finally finding a project that matches his filmmaking aesthetic.

Eastwood has proven to be most comfortable and efficient when the stories he directs are less about novelty and more about character. It provides a launching pad for his two-take, bread and butter filmmaking style to flourish, and in Chris Kyle’s life story Eastwood has found the perfect subject where he can bring that balance of toughness and sensitivity that made films like Unforgiven and Gran Torino standout classics in his filmography.

Taking advantage of that Eastwood style is Bradley Cooper, who continues to impress with another strong performance that firmly establishes his dramatic chops in his portrayal of this self-assured Texan, who joined the Navy Seals at the ripe ol’ age of 30 with the desire to be a protector of his country.

Of course the realities of war quickly squash any pre-conceived Rambo-esque fantasies. In a wonderfully underplayed scene, an internally shaken Kyle returns to his barracks after logging his first “kill” in the elimination of a young boy who was about to attack a group of US Marines with a live grenade.  

When asked why so blue, Kyle responds with “I just didn’t imagine my first to be like that”, his voice not so much filled with regret but one filled with a realisation of the hell he has found himself in, where 160 kills over 4 tours were needed to protect his brothers on a battlefield where driller killers, suicide bombers and Olympian snipers are after your head.

Cooper terrifically plays that man behind the legend. One on hand there is the impressive physical transformation that the three time Oscar nominee underwent with 18 kg of muscle added to convincingly portray the physically imposing Kyle.  But more impressive is the portrayal of the currents raging under this hulking frame, the pride, anger, guilt, paranoia and sadness that are left to stew in a melting pot that subdues this once personable cowboy into a shell of himself, where even his wife Taya (impressively portrayed by Sienna Miller) bemoans what he has become.

Eastwood does not politicise Kyle’s accomplishments or the devastating effects that resulted from them. Thankfully long gone are the political left-wing motivated protest films of the ‘70s, and the concurrent right-wing soldiers-as-killing-machines films of the ‘80s.

American Sniper is as straight down the line a war drama you are ever likely to see, told through the perspective of a man who experienced the totality of war from the battles on the ground, to the battles at home, and the battles within.