Kurt Loder Reviews American Sniper and Blackhat
Whatever Clint Eastwood's exact politics may be, his new movie waves no flags for America's involvement in the Iraq War.
Whatever Clint Eastwood's exact politics may be—kind of libertarian? sort of conservative?—his new movie, American Sniper, waves no flags for America's involvement in the Iraq War. In recounting the true story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, said to be the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history, Eastwood marshals deep feelings about the moral and physical destruction of war, and flashing anger toward the higher-ups who guide young warriors to their doom. He doesn't flinch from showing us the full ugliness of combat—American forces violently invading an Iraqi home, a vicious jihadi taking a power drill to a helpless civiliian—but this is in no way an old-school Hollywood war movie. Eastwood never exults in the brutal action, and throughout the film we can feel his disgust.