Knight Owl's Review of American Sniper; The Further Adventures of Rocket Raccoon

It's Oscar season! A time where movie goers are finally told by people we assume are smarter and better than us what films were actually 'good' from the past year. If you're someone like myself, you either haven't heard of many of the titles nominated, don't live in a place important enough to see the nominated films in a theatrical release, and/or are just pissed that The Lego Movie didn't get nominated for Best Animated Film or whatever. As a film buff/movie geek, I feel a responsibility to make an effort to see the films nominated for the oh so prestigious Academy Awards. Sometimes, my opinion differs greatly from that of the Academy (there's no way 'movie about boy growing up' is better than 'talking raccoon with tree sidekick') but thankfully this is not the case with American Sniper.

Over the past decade or so, the world has been treated to several films and television shows addressing the real world trouble that was the 'war on terror'. Being a fairly oblivious person, I only really know the Coles Notes of the whole thing but I get the gist of it. As it always goes, real life tragedy makes for compelling storytelling, and nothing's won acclaim in film notoriety like films on the war. The Hurt Locker put Jeremy Renner on the map as a mainstream star, and won a bunch of awards including Best Picture and Best Director in Kathryn Bigelow. Her follow up to that was Zero Dark Thirty, a film telling the true story behind the hunting and killing of Osama Bin Laden and was nominated for a good number of Oscars itself. Those are only the most notable examples, of which there are many, and American Sniper looks to be the next film of its kind to gain such high standing. Good, the film deserves it.

The film is based on the true story of Chris Kyle, an American veteran who holds the impressive title of most lethal sniper in 'Mericuh's history. At first, I was hesitant to see the film, as I have gone into films such as this one expecting something along the lines of Hurt Locker or Platoon and being thoroughly disappointed in one way or another. This film was anything but a disappointment. American Sniper is well enough put together that it tells a compelling and empathic story of a normal guy with a natural talent and a self-imposed responsibility to use that talent, while still able to feature some gripping and tense action sequences. And in a world where the last Transformers film was damn near three hours long, to be able to do what American Sniper did in just around two hours is truly remarkable. Kudos to Clint 'Get Off My Lawn' Eastwood for bringing his A-game.

Speaking of A-game, let's talk about Bradley Cooper for a second here. This guy is incredible. Easily one of the most versatile actors we have going right now. He's gone from the asshole in Wedding Crashers to Rocket 'By God' Raccoon, and has been picking up Oscar Noms on the way. This is the third straight year he's been nominated for an Oscar for acting, and if he loses this one not only will I be surprised, but he will be reaching DiCaprio-level status of Oscar denial. The Academy loves a good drastic body change, and Coop pulled off some bulking up for the role of Kyle.

And his everything grew three sizes that day...

What I don't understand about this film is the kind of attention it's getting these days. American Sniper has been plagued with political controversy over the past few weeks, mostly overlooking the movie altogether and jumping into the issue of whether Chris Kyle is a hero or a monster for his actions. It's become very ugly, as these things often do thanks to Twitter and the like. Here's what I think: when I say that this is based on a true story, it should come with an asterisk because in fact it's based on Kyle's autobiography because no film in this world is original anymore. Of course the film is going to paint Kyle in a certain light, and whether it's 100% true or not should be a moot point because a more accurate and detailed look at his experiences and life would 1) be a shitty, hard to follow story; and 2) be long as fuck. As a quiet but opinionated person, I can appreciate either side's approach to the man whose life is reflected in this film, but not liking a man or his actions should not impact an opinion of a film which is at best an adapted truth. It's like how I feel about Tom Cruise: yes, he's batshit insane IRL but does that mean I'm not going to see Edge of Tomorrow a bunch of times? NOPE. At the end of the day, it's a fucking movie, people. And a good one.