{"id":182,"date":"2014-12-29T23:40:06","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T04:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturated.com\/?p=182"},"modified":"2014-12-29T23:48:02","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T04:48:02","slug":"american-sniper-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/american-sniper-review\/","title":{"rendered":"American Sniper Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0000142\/\"><strong>Clint Eastwood<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s latest directorial effort tells the true story of US Navy SEAL <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chris_Kyle\"><strong>Chris Kyle<\/strong><\/a>, the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history (with 160 confirmed kills, and 255 \u201cprobable\u201d kills).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Eastwood has covered war to great effect before in <i>Heartbreak Ridge, Flags of Our Fathers <\/i>and<i> Letters From Iwo Jima. <\/i>But this is the first time he\u2019s so deeply examined the tragic physical, emotional and psychological toll war takes on both the men and women who fight and their families back home.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/99k3u9ay1gs\" width=\"648\" height=\"432\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As Kyle, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bradley_Cooper\"><strong>Bradley Cooper<\/strong><\/a> has never been better. Bulked up almost beyond recognition, with a pitch-perfect Texas drawl, he exudes the confidence and intensity of a sharp-shooter unaccustomed to missing his target. That is, until he&#8217;s tasked with shooting a small Iraqi boy who is forced by his mother to\u00a0smuggle a grenade into a column of advancing Marines.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Cooper lends his character layers of depth and vulnerability beyond the bravado and machismo. Each time Kyle returns home to his wife (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm1092227\/\"><strong>Sienna Miller<\/strong><\/a>) and child, he\u2019s more haunted by the ghosts of the men he couldn\u2019t save, and more determined to kill the Iraqi sniper who becomes his mortal enemy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Because of the \u201clone wolf\u201d nature of the sniper\u2019s occupation, this feels less like a traditional war movie than a modern-day version of Clint\u2019s classic gunslinger films. Kyle is steely-eyed and poker-faced, with his actions on the battlefield rarely betraying the turgid emotions roiling within. But at home he\u2019s clearly a broken man increasingly afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/american-sniper-bradley-cooper-clint-eastwood.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-141 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/american-sniper-bradley-cooper-clint-eastwood.jpeg\" alt=\"American Sniper Review\" width=\"648\" height=\"486\" srcset=\"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/american-sniper-bradley-cooper-clint-eastwood.jpeg 648w, https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/american-sniper-bradley-cooper-clint-eastwood-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/american-sniper-bradley-cooper-clint-eastwood-330x247.jpeg 330w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For better or worse, Eastwood avoids any sort of rah-rah American patriotism and the\u00a0self-mythologizing of Kyle&#8217;s book (his estate recently lost a $1.8 million defamation lawsuit to Jesse Ventura, after Kyle boasted about\u00a0beating up the former Minnesota governor in a bar fight).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The straightforward direction of <em>American Sniper<\/em> isn\u2019t likely to win Eastwood any more\u00a0Oscars, but Cooper deserves another\u00a0nomination for his harrowing turn. The heartbreaking coda, in which Kyle is murdered by a fellow vet at a shooting range, ends the film on a potent note. \u00a0<b><i>\u2013Bret Love<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"movie_info clearfix\">\n<div class=\"left_col\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<dl class=\"dl-horizontal\">\n<dd><strong>RATING:<\/strong> R (for strong and disturbing war violence, and language throughout including some sexual references)<\/dd>\n<dt class=\"subtle\"><\/dt>\n<dt class=\"subtle\"><strong>GENRE:<\/strong>\u00a0Drama\u00a0,\u00a0Action &amp; Adventure<\/dt>\n<dt class=\"subtle\"><\/dt>\n<dt class=\"subtle\"><strong>DIRECTED BY:<\/strong> \u00a0Clint Eastwood<\/dt>\n<dt class=\"subtle\"><strong><br \/>\nWRITTEN BY:\u00a0<\/strong>Jason Hall<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<p><strong>MAIN CAST: <\/strong>Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Luke Grimes, Kyle Gallner, Jake McDorman<\/p>\n<div><strong>STUDIO:<\/strong> Warner Bros. Pictures<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clint Eastwood\u2019s latest directorial effort tells the true story of US Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history (with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,11],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/AMERICAN-SNIPER_Bradley_Cooper.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5slei-2W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}