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Critics Consensus: Powered by Clint Eastwood's sure-handed direction and a gripping central performance from Bradley Cooper, American Sniper delivers a tense, vivid tribute to its real-life subject.
Critic Consensus: Powered by Clint Eastwood's sure-handed direction and a gripping central performance from Bradley Cooper, American Sniper delivers a tense, vivid tribute to its real-life subject.
All Critics (278) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (200) | Rotten (78) | DVD (4)
American Sniper has a perspective that's recognizable from the classic Westerns Eastwood has long been associated with, both as an actor and a director. It's an existential critique of violent machismo that doubles as a celebration of violence.
Eastwood makes the moral stakes almost nonexistent.
Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is an often lazy and somewhat hazy propaganda film about American heroism and hell in the Iraq War.
Although Cooper succeeds in resembling and sounding like the real Kyle, this isn't some cheap impersonation trick. Cooper gives maybe the best performance of his career.
Director Clint Eastwood deftly shows the mental and physical toll of heroism in a way that will leave you gutted.
The 84-year-old's deep appreciation of the masculine -- its conflicts, its appeal, its evolving truths -- has added texture to our understanding of violence, warfare and more. At least as it is represented onscreen.
When "American Sniper" is on the battlefield, it is at its best. Eastwood has a keen sense of pacing for those moments, bringing an intensity that is as great as any film in the genre.
American Sniper es un estremecedor retrato sobre la responsabilidad y el patriotismo de un hombre con su país impulsado por la fantástica personificación de Bradley Cooper
American Sniper holds up as a movie that has something to say about the military experience, and says it effectively.
It's not often that a movie can spur a reaction from both the heart and the mind, and this film does just that.
Even when we remove discussion of the real Chris Kyle...we still have to contend with American Sniper's problematic approach to and depiction of recent real life events.
American Sniper has succeeded at what it set out to do: provoke hysterical reactions from right-wing American viewers and a feeling of crushing indifference from everybody else.
While there's a war story here (snd the pros and cons of war on either side of the aisle are addressed, nodded to) Eastwood focuses instead on the slow pervasive addiction of warfare, how nothing compares to the adrenaline rush and how subtly it begins to creep under one's skin. Cooper solidly portrays a dude who's got it all under control, until he realizes that he doesn't. Good film.
Super Reviewer
Though understandably accused of being jingoistic and racist - even if it makes a (dishonest, yes) distinction between Iraqi civilians and terrorists -, this is an extremely tense (and very well edited) war movie and a nuanced character study with Cooper in an intense performance.
Well-directed and at times inspiring, "American Sniper" is a strange blend of Jingoism and a criticism of the violence inflicted on the American side of the Iraqi war. Unfortunately, this lop-sided approach dulls the film's broader message about the effects of war on humanity. Great acting by Cooper and exciting action sequences make the film worth seeing even if the film is a bit overlong.
Succeeds largely on the strength of Bradley Cooper's great performance and less on the true life story that inspired it. Despite being a well told story, this is a theme we have seen plenty of times before on film. For me, it lessened the impact of it a little bit as I was reminded of better films like "The Hurt Locker", but all in all this is a story worth telling. The action is intense, well shot, and keeps you on the edge of your seat at times. It does get a little repetitive with him taking so many tours trying to find the same guy, but this is a small complaint. Otherwise, this is a film worth watching.
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