American Sniper (15), directed by Clint Eastwood

5/5

Clint Eastwood has notably condemned all US wars of intervention from Vietnam to Iraq, so American Sniper has puzzled a few by its supposed patriotism.

But Eastwood, with a track record of providing revisionist history lessons in films such as Unforgiven, has proved he’s a dab hand in the art of dialectics.

In American Sniper, he takes the notion of patriotism and a real-life “legend” of the so-called war on terror in Iraq and slowly strips away such delusion to reveal that the film’s protagonist is a victim of his own ideology.

The film tells the story of Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), a Texan rancher who’s inspired to join the Navy Seals after watching a TV programme on terrorism.

His claim to fame is the fact that he had a record 255 confirmed kills, which is prized in a system that approved the practice of scalp-hunting.

Eastwood’s approach is evident from the first frame. As a sweating sniper is lining up to shoot a child, we’re whisked back to a boy being brutalised by his father.

Apart from him being handy with a gun, Kyle’s fully versed in the US catechism that “shepherds put down the wolves to protect the sheep.”

After we’re introduced to his community, we get to meet his future spouse Taya (Sienna Miller) before we’re reminded of the soldier’s lot, already made familiar from films like Platoon onwards.

By the time the consequences of his opening shot becomes evident, the film has explored the increasing psychological traumas that undermine his sense of mission.

It’s a battle on two fronts. His wife pleads with him to take a rest, while he’s increasingly afflicted by the effect he has on those eager to follow his example. The belief falters, the ideology crumbles and by the time he’s shell-shocked into a realisation that he could be better off at home, he became the fatal target of an embittered fellow veteran.

With its concentration on the trauma of the soldiers, serving to promote compassion for their plight, some have likened the film to The Hurt Locker.

Yet while such empathy is evident, it’s by no means similar. Eastwood’s film is far more in tune with debunking the myths central to his WWII film Flags of Our Fathers.

Another significant difference, an essential tool in exposing US war crimes, is that the troops relay the horrors they experience by mobile phones. Kyle and his peers have to deal with a courageous and cunning enemy, ready to kill and be sacrificed for their homeland, epitomised by the running battle with “Butcher” (Mido Hamada).

American Sniper is not only a portrait of a man experiencing doubts and trauma, it also exposes the paucity of imperialist policies that lead the US to act with military impunity.

Eastwood, as always, displays a profound understanding of the US psyche by employing one of its very own “heroes” to illustrate the horror of its actions.

Not bad for an 85-year-old veteran, who displays a wisdom absent in US presidents past, present and possibly future.