Clint Eastwood masturbating the flag and making a mass killer into Captain America. Captain America would puke. And the guy himself, mass killing and writing a book about it and pretending he’s not stealth bragging about being a mass killer. He’s so self-important he feels just fine telling God what God should think. I imagine if God had a problem with the killing, he’d pop God’s ass. Wonder how that worked out?
I’d like to watch Bradley Cooper’s performance, but I can’t bring myself to pay money for this movie.
The book was excellent, and didn’t paint Chris Kyle as a hero or a Sniper God - he himself states quite clearly many of his shots (including the record-breaker) were a lot of luck.
In the book. I liked how they tackled the issues that many military members have with balancing love for their family with loyalty to their country and fellow brothers/sisters in uniform. I hope they demonstrate this struggle in the movie.
The review I saw said that Cooper does an outstanding job, but that “Eastwood took the book’s story and hammered it flat.” Doesn’t sound good to me, so I’ll likely wait until it’s free on cable.
Clint Eastwood has made a sneaky, complicated film that takes the form of a rousing war movie but whose ideas are almost subversive, or at least too provocative to state overtly.* From here.
So sly, subversive film or grandstanding fantasy - take your pick :).
Is Eastwood capable of subversive? I doubt it, unless what you mean by “subversive” is America has gotten too liberal and we need to sneak in more flag masturbating.
Have you ever seen any of the movies Eastwood has directed? Unforgiven? Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino? Mystic River? Flags of our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima? Most of the movies he’s directed, especially the later ones tend to be, for lack of a better word, morally complex, with characters who are morally or emotionally conflicted. He doesn’t tend to go for “flag masturbating”.
I mean, look at Flags of our Fathers, which is literally about the Marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. But it’s not a pure rah rah patriotic story. I mean, it’s mostly about Ira Hayes, and a lot of the story is about his being idolized as an all-American hero and sent around to sell war bonds while at the same time dealing with the discrimination he faces for being Native American, as well as his own PTSD and guilt over his actions on Iwo.
A sniper’s most important role is providing support cover for our troops. There are literally thousands of our men that returned home safely because of skilled American snipers.
I suggest reading a couple books on snipers. Kyle’s is very good. I’m currently reading Nick ‘Irv’ Irving’s book The Reaper. He’s a former Former Army Ranger that had 33 kills in Iraq.
The OP is describing the early Clint Eastwood movies. I think his movies have gotten far more interesting and complex as he’s aged. Gran Torino came almost full circle from his early film – his character is clearly a metaphor as (cranky) Jesus – he confronts his enemies unarmed, throws out is arms in what amounts to a crucifixion and gets shot down in a manner calculated to protect his innocent children.
I don’t want to see him at a political convention again, but I’ll happily watch his flicks.
Eastwood is an interesting person. He does indeed make morally complex films but at times he comes off as right-wing. An example would be his empty chair performance criticizing President Obama.
I will see it at some point in the next month because it’s the only Oscar-nominated film I haven’t seen (for Best Picture that is. There are 4 films that got acting nominations I haven’t seen, but I’m seeing two of the them in the next couple of days). I’m not looking forward to it and to be honest will probably pay for something else.