American Sniper is the film adaptation of the book of the same name that tells the story of the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history, Chris Kyle. The film tells his life story, but mostly focuses on his four tours of duty and the effects of those tours on him everytime he returns home.
The film's premise got me interested in the film, because who wouldn't want to know about the effects of war on the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history? Also, Bradley Cooper was starring in it, and he's just a fantastic actor. Clint Eastwood's recent film Jersey Boys kind of limited my anticipated for the film, but to hear that this film got nominated for Best Picture, gave me a lot of hope, so imagine my disappointment when I was finally able to see this film last night.
The first act of the movie is quite good. It gives you the story of Chris Kyle before he joined the army and key moments in his early life that really lead into where ends up going, and you're totally invested in the character and where he's going. To top that off, Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller were giving really good performances. I was feeling good about this movie, but all of that was taken away by a painfully boring and bland second act.
The second act takes away all personality or humanity away from our main character, and just makes him a pretty stoic army guy who kills people. I'm not really criticizing the actions of the actual Chris Kyle, that's not my place, but I am criticizing that the lead character of the movie was devoid of any character and uninteresting. Having an uninteresting lead character will make your movie unengaging and boring, and that's exactly what the second act of the movie was for me. Instead of taking time to explore the character, the movie just gives attention to moving the plot forward, but I wasn't really invested in the character anymore, so I didn't really care as to where the story was headed.
There's a line of dialogue that Sienna Miller says around halfway through the movie that goes something like "I want my husband to return home to us.", and I found that funny as I was feeling the same thing, because I was thinking I just wanted the character I invested in to come back as well.
It seemed like all hope was lost for the film, but the third act does slightly manage to rekindle some of the character's complexity and personality from the first act, but it isn't much to save the film. Something he said during the final battle sequence and his return home to the U.S. in the scene following brought back my interest in him as a character, and I really wish they took time to explore more of that throughout the film so the movie would've felt like it ended on a high note rather than a recuperation note.
The film is not without its positive aspects though, so I'd best not to forget it. As I said earlier, Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller turned in great performances. I also liked most of the scenes during his first and fourth tours. The action sequences in those two tours still stand out to me as rather good.
American Sniper is a well-acted war drama that starts off with an interesting lead character, but it stumbles along the way and its character with complexity and humanity is gone, so the film sadly becomes unengaging and painfully boring. It's not even because of political reasons that I lost interest in this character. I'd still be interested in learning more about Chris Kyle and his story. It's just most of the movie didn't deliver an interesting lead character.
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