Seasoned filmmaker Clint Eastwood turns Chris Kyle, the real life US Navy Seal and a much feared sniper with 150-odd kills in his resume during the Iraq war, into a cinematic hero beyond critical analysis.
Based on Kyle’s autobiography, much like Hurt Locker, Eastwood’s drama plays to the conservative gallery sidestepping the politics of war. Almost forgetting that Kyle died not on the war front but at a Texas shooting range. It is silent on the effect of his celebrity status on the society around him.
Like the sniper it observes his targets from a distance and calls them savages. Full of chest thumping bravura moments, the film is just short of a well mounted hagiography of a common American soldier who doesn’t go into the ring after analysing the right and wrong. He just wants to save his colleagues and countrymen. And it rings a bell for Eastwood attempts to bring out the conflicted personality of a soldier. The inner demons that he has to grapple with. What happens when he come home and tries to fit in? In Bradley Cooper he has an actor who has remarkably transformed to become a sharp shooter. As he explains the process of killing you know Redmayne is not going to have it easy at the Oscars.
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