Short Cuts: American Sniper

American Sniper is a biographical war movie directed by Clint Eastwood based on the memoir American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History written by Chris Kyle. I should mention that I haven't read the book and simply watched the movie on HBO one lazy afternoon so I can't comment on the whether the film was a faithful adaptation or not.

This movie was controversial when it was released. Critics dismissed the film as propaganda; a jingoist film that glossed over the evils of the war in Iraq. Supporters of the film stood by it as a celebration of the heroism of soldiers like Chris Kyle. The whole hubbub surrounding this film is tainted by politics but it can't be helped. Many Americans still feel very strongly about the war and their biases filter the way they see the movie. Since I'm not an American, I don't have that kind of baggage and hopefully, I can provide a more objective or neutral opinion on the film.

The film is about Chris Kyle, who was such a deadly sniper that he became known as "The Legend". Many soldiers were saved by his killing of enemy threats. He was so good that a bounty was placed on his head. The film isn't solely about his exploits in war however, but also about his family life and the struggles he had to face after his tours of duty in Iraq. Overall, I thought it was a good movie. If you take your mind off the Iraq war and its antecedents and just focus on the subject of the movie, Chris Kyle, you would appreciate the movie more.

Black, White and Grey

One problem I can see with the film is that there is little moral conflict or doubt when it came to the war itself. Chris Kyle, played by Bradley Cooper, explained his view, taught to him by his father, that the world is composed of sheep, wolves and sheepdogs and that it was his job to protect people by killing the enemy. Not to make insults but it's a simplistic worldview and the movie seems to warp around that to reflect it. The Iraqis are the bad guys, he shoots them and that's that. I can see why the movie's critics dismiss this as propaganda. The black and white battleground may not seem fair to people who have other views of the conflict. The hero himself doesn't seem to experience any moment of regret about the people he shot or consider any action he took as a mistake. The film seems to strongly imply that Chris Kyle, and America by extension if you're biased that way, were most definitely the good guys and doesn't explore this any further. You can see how this upsets people who opposed the war.

But you know what? I'm fine with that. You know, war movies shouldn't necessarily be obliged to take a moment and explain to the audience about the nuances of the war and the different points of view to the conflict. The hero shouldn't be obliged to suddenly stop, get on his hands and knees and scream to the heavens, "What have I done!?" and mope about questioning the righteousness of the war. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that there are soldiers who have a simple point of view and simply don't have a problem killing people who they sincerely believe had it coming. I read that the actual Chris Kyle had no problems with killing people and may have enjoyed it. It's a tad disturbing if it's true but there are people like that.

The real interesting bit is that even if Chris Kyle believed he was killing the bad guys, he still develops emotional trauma from his experiences. In the movie, Chris develops a legendary reputation among the troops and many hail him as a hero. This bothers him since he doesn't consider himself as such in the film. In an unusual twist, the soldier is traumatized not by what he did but by what he didn't do. He laments that he couldn't save everyone. Even in the scenes where he returns to his home in America, his mind is still in Iraq. He spends the day watching snuff videos of American soldiers being killed in Iraq and it tears him up inside. He seethes and broods and it's obvious that he wants to get back in the fight, so much so that he goes on four tours to Iraq.

I think that's the key to the movie. It's about Chris Kyle, right? If we're to understand the guy, we have to see things from his point of view and this would necessarily mean the reduction of the Iraq War into a simple good vs. evil type of conflict. That's how he saw it.  His good vs evil, sheep, wolf and sheepdog point of view led him to do heroic (saving soldiers) things but was also the cause of his turmoil. His whole self-inflicted ordeal could also seem foolish to outsiders who don't see the world this way. At times he seemed like a guy who seemed too obsessed with having to do his duty to save everybody. Possible hero complex? The film doesn't explore it much.

There were bad guys and all we know about them is that they're bad. The hero's nemesis, an enemy sniper, was just that. There was a brief scene which showed that the enemy sniper too had a family and seemed eerily similar to our hero but it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it type of deal and it's never explored.

It was a little disappointing that, near the end, it seems that Chris was getting over his hangups it a little too easily but then the ending happened. The movie just abruptly ended. I don't know if I should spoil the real-life reason why but it was poignant and ironic.

Is it good?

Yes, but only if you can set your politics about the war aside for a while and just watch it for what it is. It's red meat. It's a good guy vs. bad guys movie like the days of old except that it stars a character (or real person?) who actually believed the world was good guy vs. bad guys. Strangely, the best scenes were the ones when Chris returned home to his wife and children and finds himself unable to adjust back to normal civilian life. Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller gave great performances. It seemed like you could feel tension in the air between them and feel the emotional distance between them even as they lay in bed together.

One Last Complaint

In one scene where his character attempts to be a father to his family, Bradley Cooper has to take, what is supposed to be a child, in his arms and its clearly not a child. It's fake. It's a fake plastic baby.

I hate this scene. I really fucking hate this. It took me completely out of the movie and distracted me so much that I couldn't pay attention to what the characters were saying. It's like taking a nice, comfortable bus ride and somebody just makes the worst, smelliest, beefiest fart next to you and it lingers for several minutes. It's almost as bad as the CGI baby in Twilight and damn this film for making me remember Twilight. The actor did his best and tried to make it move its arm with his thumb but that made it even worse.

Anyway, it was a good movie.

Short Cuts: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

This is usually the part where the author goes on at length about how he's a huge Star Wars fan and enjoyed it as a kid, etc. Not me. To be frank, I never had a thing for Star Wars. I don't hate it. At most, I find the whole thing, the hype and the obsessive fandom around it slightly obnoxious but to put it another way, I'm not as emotionally invested to this particular franchise as others.

That being said, I didn't really like this movie. I wanted to. The action scenes were fun, I guess. Overall, I just didn't feel anything. I felt like I had seen it all before. Wait, I did. It was called A New Hope. The Force Awakens follows the original's major plot beats. This is the most common criticism of it and I think it's fair.

I guess it was my fault too for expecting something mind-blowing. With all the unbelievable hype surrounding this movie, you can't blame me. Instead, the reasoning for TFA ripping off the original is that it's a "soft reboot". What nice sounding corporate dribble. It's meant to please the old fans by sticking to the familiar while easing new fans into the universe. I get the point of it. I understand why they did it but I'd hate to live in a world where I have to think more about the marketing angle of a movie to "appreciate it" rather than the movie itself. 

This movie was going to make billions on name brand alone. They had a lot of room to take more risks with it and push it harder to more daring territory. Instead it's as "safe" as can be, so much so that it's basically a copy of the first. It's like a grown man who still refuses to go to the deeper end of the pool. The folks at Disney wanted a safe bet despite there not being a safer thing in the world, as far as milking nostalgia goes, as Star Wars. And I thought I was cynical.

This reminds me of my review of Guardians of the Galaxy. That was an incoherent, raging mess which I'm not proud of but TFA reminds me of it and now I realize why I was so angry. I felt manipulated in a way. I felt Guardians of the Galaxy relied on catchy tunes and cheap Internet meme-material jokes to hook people in. I felt TFA relied on the original so much that the illusion was shattered and you saw the inner workings of corporate bullshit. It's like it doesn't have a soul, you know? Ah, it's hard to describe in words exactly.

Feel free to hate me.

Short Cuts: Guardians of the Galaxy

I've been a little busy and in a very bad mood lately so let's do this quickly.

I didn't like this movie. I just didn't. Entertainment is subjective. What one person finds entertaining may be boring to others. That being said, if you already saw this movie and enjoyed it, good for you.

Well, that's all.

Just kidding. I guess I owe it to the almost-handful of people who read this blog to explain my reasons for disliking what appears to be the movie everyone just loves to death.

"Humor"

This movie has only three things going for it: its humor, its retro soundtrack and its comic book nerd appeal. The humor wasn't very funny. Sure, it may have been amusing the first few attempts but it got old fast. The "oh, look at me, don't take me seriously" kind of humor where the characters point at themselves or at their situation and expect us to laugh didn't really work for me. I find absurd humor funnier when the characters do not point out or acknowledge their own situation and instead, leave it to the audience to get it on their own. But such a manner would need subtlety in a movie that's filled to the brim with audience pandering. There was too much expository dialogue at certain points and not enough "set-up then pay-off" kinds of humor. I didn't help that I disliked our main hero played by Chris Pratt. I didn't find Chris Pratt particularly funny and I'm not sure why. The other actors were just okay I guess.

Pandering

Anyway, back to the pandering. My inner cynic was attempting to eat it's way out of my chest again when it came to the soundtrack.  This movie was downright low in shoving in as much old 70's hits as possible. I knew what this was. It was meant to appeal to the old nerds in the audience as well as the people who would feel so happy about themselves in hearing the old pop songs and then congratulate themselves for knowing the names of the songs. "Hey! I remember that song! Cherry Bomb!" It's hipster garbage calculated to stick in your ear and make people feel good and nostalgic and remember the movie in a positive light. The movie takes special care to insert oh-so-serious scenes in between the action and laughs. It felt jarring and poorly done. We go from comedic to super serious like a flip of a switch. The tone whiplash is annoying. In fact, the rather heavy opening sequence doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the movie except to be called back at the end just for the audience to go, "Awww, now Chris Pratt has a chance to do what he couldn't as a kid." How cheap.

Enough

As for comic book nerd appeal, it's already obvious at this point with the over-saturation of comic book based movies today. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of it. I think the only reason I can say I didn't like the movie is because I don't care much for comic books in the first place. I'm not really invested in this universe or any others. Sure, I read a few and can appreciate it for what it is but I'm not so attached to it. You know what, I take pride in not knowing the in-jokes or gags that only the "real fans" would get. At least I know that all that is just pandering. Hollywood can take that nostalgia, "feel good" crap and shove it up its ass.

 The Ugly Truth

Take away these three things and what do you have? Take away the brand name appeal, copyrighted characters and franchise and then what do you have? You have a movie that can't stand on its own. A lazy, bog-standard mediocre space adventure film with a few cool looking fight scenes that treats its audience like easy-to-please dumbasses. I wish the movie tried a little harder to be clever. I wish it didn't act as if it knew it was already gonna make millions of dollars anyway regardless and tried a little harder in general.

It's been a rough couple of days by the way. Just saying.

Short Cuts: Les Miserables

Late last Tuesday when I was snug in my bed, I saw Les Miserables on HBO. I admit, I cried at the end but only because the movie was finally over. What a ridiculous piece of crap.

Miserable Indeed

Now, I've never seen Les Miserables before. I've heard of it but I haven't seen any play or read the book. I'm an uncultured swine so sue me.

I found the whole movie tedious. I guess it's because they sang everything. Normally, I expect regular dialogue in between numbers but it was all singing all the time. How does that work anyway, singing everything you say? Does one have to sing, "I gotta go piss in the bathroom!" before he does it? Anyway, I wouldn't have a problem with it if the movie wasn't two and a half hours long. It's tiring and hard to sit through since all that singing is insisting I stay engaged. Give me a break.

I think I don't need to talk about the story since it's, you know, way more than a hundred years old. I get the feeling that all the actors in this movie are trying to nab the spotlight and outdo everything else. I dunno, maybe that's just me. Overall, I didn't like it as a movie. I hope it's only because of the fact that it's a movie. Maybe I'd enjoy it if it was a different production.

I did enjoy some parts of this movie though. I enjoyed watching Russell Crowe attempt to sing. Russell Crowe's face looked so bored and tired, perhaps even depressed, throughout the whole show so naturally, I sympathized. I liked it when the kid got shot. 

I liked it when the credits started rolling.