Review: American Sniper

2.5/4 (down from 3/4)

American Sniper is a solid film and not much more. I don't even feel like it tries to do a whole lot... Such is the nature of biopics, more often than not. I am frustrated by the genre as I am frustrated by adaptations of novels. American Sniper is both.
This is not to say that I can sympathize with Sniper, Eastwood in particular, for being handicapped by the genre he's working in. These directors fail to see the trap that adapting true stories or fiction from other mediums can lead to. It just doesn't fit. One cannot transcribe a story into another medium without extreme care, and a very talented eye. It just doesn't fit.
Besides those frustrations were the disappointments at the cheap, archetypal dialogue. The center romantic relationship was a cliche, in particular. The dynamic here felt like Godzilla: the awesome epicness and profoundness of the center plot plopped next to a lame romance that will keep Hollywood involved. I don't know about the rest of America, but I could do 2 hours and 15 minutes of solid combat, as I could do a whole movie of Godzilla-crap.
I cannot speak for whether the war-renderings were accurate--specifically, what matters most, the relationships between soldiers and the psyches involved--but I'd like more. I can't imagine that war is this... normal. It almost feels underromanticized. I have high expectations for emotion and thematic depth in films, because I know it's possible. I know Synecdoche and Magnolia. All other movies thus become weak.
I generally liked the tone of the film, which, like other Eastwood films, was primarily war-realism. The major weaknesses of the movie definitely came out off the battlefield, when Eastwood tried to create Hollywood human-life situations. We've seen those before.
The fighting was great though--but that's partially just me. I enjoy watching war; it is very interesting to me. Also, Bradley Cooper was very solid. He exited himself, perhaps for the first time I've personally ever seen. I didn't feel anything deep for his character though, oddly.
It was all good, well-done, fine and dandy. Some of it was powerful, some intense. If put in a setting other than war, though, I would have been dissatisfied.