Customer Ratings & Reviews

In American Sniper, the 34th film to be directed by Clint Eastwood, Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) rarely has a clear view of the field of battle. As perhaps the most accomplished marksman in US military history, he’s invariably lying on his belly on a dust-blown rooftop, staring down a telescopic sight, methodically picking off one enemy after the next. His experience of war is an endless extreme close-up. Eastwood’s tense and absorbing film was adapted from the memoirs of the real Chris Kyle, a highly decorated American Navy SEAL who served on four tours of duty in Iraq before being honourably discharged in 2009. He was great at what he did, which is to way say he was a skilled and dependable killer. He had 160 confirmed kills to his name – the actual total may have exceeded 250 – and proved so deadly that the Iraqis eventually put a six-figure bounty on his head. But Eastwood doesn’t care about the legend. Instead, he shows us Kyle much as he saw his targets: with that strange combination of extreme intimacy and extreme remove that a long-range sight confers. The film begins by turning its sharpshooting star into a target. During a nerve-wracking confrontation in Fallujah, we watch Kyle take aim at a young boy who’s about to hurl a grenade at his platoon, a neat match-cut whips us back in time to a young Kyle being taught how to hunt by his father in the Texas backwoods. It’s as if the adult is taking aim across time and space at his younger self – abnegating his own life in order to do this job he believes is simultaneously terrible and right. Cooper, who’s bulked up to the size of a largish bottle bank for the role, deftly captures Kyle’s experience of operating in this eerie moral dead zone. (The film’s not interested in the morality of the Iraq War itself, just Kyle’s actions within it.) When he takes a successful shot, often at a near-impossible distance, his colleagues cheer and whoop, but he remains still, silently processing what’s just happened. (His boot-camp instructor encourages him to “find the space between heartbeats” in which take each shot.) The black-and-white simplicity of the mission briefings – move in, clear this, capture that, get out – become trampled into a morass of moral greyness. In that sense, Kyle is a typical Eastwoodian hero: another lone gunman on a wild frontier, trying his best to square his actions with his code. Between tours, Kyle tries to decompress back at home in Texas with his wife Taya, who’s terrifically played by Sienna Miller: with this and her equally subtle, shaded turn in Foxcatcher, she seems to be gearing up for an overdue career renaissance. The couple’s domestic strains aren’t all that interesting or unusual for a film of this type, but Cooper and Miller play them with a clarity and rawness that keep the R&R sequences from feeling like dramatic down-time. Besides, regardless of whether the film has us in a suburban Texan bedroom or a firefight in the shattered Iraqi streets, each scene is built as solidly and methodically as a chest of drawers, with no confusion over where the pieces fit. Panic has never been Eastwood’s style, and even during the climactic shoot-out, where a sandstorm engulfs both sides in a symbolic fog of war, the camera remains perceptive and alert. In the scheme of Eastwood’s career, this comes as something of a relief. After the murky triple-flub of Hereafter, J. Edgar and Jersey Boys, American Sniper brings us back the Eastwood who made Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, his magnificent paired war films from 2006, and reminds us that the theatre of war – a stark testing ground for manhood – may be the ideal stage for this filmmaker’s late-career concerns. But what’s missing – and what lifted Kathryn Bigelow’s recent, thematically similar war films The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty into the realm of great cinema – is a sense of fatefulness. Kyle’s story, finely textured as it is, doesn’t tell us much about anything other than Kyle himself, whereas the intensely personal stories in Bigelow’s films posed bigger questions, broadening their outlooks even as they narrowed their focus. American Sniper is too direct for that, but it's still a welcome comeback for Eastwood.

A pretty decent wart movie depicting life over in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is one of Clint Eastwood's best directed movie. And Bradley Cooper, is great as a serious actor. A few corny jokes and not that much different from similar movies you've seen before but gripping nonetheless. Be prepared and have the tissues ready, especially if you aren't familiar with the story before you see the movie!

An Okay Movie but nothing special. More drama than action, but that's okay. Just don't buy this movie thinking it will be an action / adventure war movie. It focuses on psychological side of the main character and is not just another shoot em up no brainier. It is worth watching and i would watch it again.

Even when this movie show us some and part of a cruel reality that the soldiers experiment every day in a conflict originated years ago,was not what i expect. I feel admire the courage and bravery of every single person who put a foot and stand to defend hes/her family,convictions and country.

I belong to a DVD swap site and my place in the cue for this movie was so far back that it would take a couple years to add to my DVD collection. So, I waited until it went on sale at Best Buy and picked up this DVD. It's a good addition to my collection.

The movie is intense but the story telling is kind of confusing. The movie editing is not good and some scene I don't understand it at all. The war scene is good and realistic but some scene that happened in the US is weak and confusing.

Enjoyed the movie and will watch again to catch what I missed the first time. Brad Cooper did an amazing role. When I watched the movie I did not know it was a true story till the end. This is a keeper to my movie collection.

After watching I coudn't really figure out what all the hype was about (I guess I just didn't find the story or lead very character compelling). Not a bad flick, well crafted and acted, but I would catch this on sale for sure.

I enjoyed the storyline and its depiction. It was moving. And, although the acting was good, I think Brad Cooper overaccentuated Chris Kyle's southern accent so much that it made his character sound uneducated.

For a bio pic movie they should stuck to truth and not add other things that did not happen. Felt like a lot of key moments were left out. Overall disappointed. Didn't capture the true struggle of his life.

For all the hype this movie generated when it came to theaters I was expecting more. I felt as if I knew what was going to happen from start to finish. And I did. Wish I'd have waited for it on cable.

first, I have to say that Bradley Cooper gave a great performance. it's just that I expected much more in the way of drama and emotion, especially since there really wasn't a lot of action.

I was expecting alot more from this movie since I was told it was better than Saving Private Ryan, but I don't think it was. Like the fact that it's based on a true story tho.

I really wanted to see this movie but than when I did it was not as good as I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong still a great movie but just not worth all the hype it got..

i bought this because ive heard good things about it, still havent gotten around to watching it though. i did watch sicario last night though, and that was amazing!

Great story line...actors were average at best. Not sure what all the hype was over. The standards for good movies have lowered tremendously, in my honest opinion...

Wasn't sure if I'd like this movie. Wanted to try it. Directed by Clinton Eastwood was a draw. Just OK

A bit over-hyped. This movies doesn't compare to Saving Private Ryan, which almost gave you everything you would want in a movie. The ending was a bit sad.

Parts of this movie are fantastic and put you in the action. Other sections seem too forced. Acting is great; action is great, just a bit disjointed.

Really thought this would be a great show. Unfortunatly it wasn't as good as expected. The story is a good one, it just wasn't portrayed well.