Clint Eastwood (“Bronco Billy”, “Sudden Impact”) directs this harsh true story of currently the most deadly sniper in American military history. Its narrative means that perhaps it isn’t as engaging as something such as “Black Hawk Down” but it is a good film.

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper “Limitless”, “A-Team”) is just a regular southern American. When he sees attacks against the U.S. on tv, he decides to join the army. He’s stationed in Iraq fighting various insurgents throughout his tours and builds up a real reputation but everything isn’t okay in his mind. Slowly, he becomes unable to properly interact with his family and friends until there is only his job.

I’ve never really cared for Bradley Cooper. This film isn’t a great platform to showcase one’s acting talents as Chris Kyle is just a regular guy. He’s not quirky or anything like that and he’s a man of few words. Apparently, according to family and friends of the real Chris Kyle, he managed to captured the guy really well so if that’s true then I guess this is a good performance. The other characters don’t really matter that much, the focus is on Chris Kyle pretty much the whole time.

“American Sniper” is shocking. There is a scene involving a small child and a power drill and it is incredibly distressing so don’t think of this as being some Rambo-style version of events. It’s well-directed by Clint Eastwood, who manages to capture that realism to violence seen in his films “Unforgiven” and “True Crime”. The film has come under some fire with some calling it mindless propaganda; I have no clue as it to why anybody would think that. “American Sniper” is a pretty darn good war movie, it’s no “Full Metal Jacket” but it is a powerful piece that has the same approach, realism of fanciness.