by Darryl Reid
Maybe I’m just a naïve optimist, but I was under the impression that each and every one of us who has been alive for the past decade had already concluded the Iraq War was a gargantuan waste of lives, money and resources—each and every one. Does anyone really still think it was a good idea? Even climate change deniers are generally given more respect than people who still support the Iraq War. Sure, there’s always those on the far-right fringe who never seem to disappear no matter how much we want them to, but who really, truly thinks it was a good idea?
Clint Eastwood, that’s who!
Listen up punk, cranky Clint is here with a movie to show you what America is all about: guns, dicks, men doing manly things with guns and their dicks and women doing womanly things that don’t involve guns. Before we get into why this movie is such terrible bucket of swill I’d like to take a tangent for a moment to talk about Eastwood.
In 1992, Eastwood directed the brilliant film Unforgiven, which deconstructed and challenged many myths born of the western genre. That film blurred the lines between heroism, villainy, man and myth. It was a very mature and nuanced look at the ways we view the past, violence and justice. And it was not a fluke; Eastwood has made several films since which delve into weighty issues with tact and grace. So I assumed that if any Hollywood filmmaker is capable of making a mature film about the Iraq War, it’s Clint Eastwood.
Unfortunately, the director of American Sniper is far closer to the man who lectured an empty chair at the 2012 Republican National Convention than the one who directed Unforgiven.
Ok, so what about the film?
In the first moments of the film, we see a flashback of our hero’s life: hunting with daddy, going to church, all the things that make ‘Murica great. Chris Kyle is the God-loving American sniper standing up to America’s enemies and killing all the bad guys. Five minutes in we realize this movie is nothing but propagandist pap from the Pentagon’s PR department. Frankly, the only thing separating it from a Michael Bay film is a lack of explosions. In other words, this film is politically indistinguishable from a Michael Bay film in that it’s a giant love letter to the Pentagon.
In this day and age if you want to make a film and use realistic hardware with the level of detail craved by every military fetishist, you have to pretty much become the Pentagon’s rent boy. They will let you use authentic military hardware and even throw in some change, but there’s just one tiny little catch: they get final say on the script and will force you to remove anything that makes the US military look bad. So you can make a film that is critical of the US military but you won’t get jack from the Pentagon and all the salivating military nerd-boys will hate your film. Or you can jump in bed with the Pentagon and make yet another propaganda film. Either way your movie will suck.
Not only is this film literally a piece of propaganda—the problem is it’s not even entertaining propaganda. (Unless you love racism. Bradley Cooper, who plays Kyle, refers to everyone in the Middle East as a savage. If so, this is surely your movie.)
Why can’t I just once see a war film about some queer New Yorker who runs off to war? If you watch Hollywood films you will come to the mistaken idea that all military men are heterosexual white boys from Texas.
As Kyle, Cooper is as an aw shucks, hard fightin’, loving good ol’ boy from Texas who failed as a cowboy only to find his true calling as a sniper in the Navy Seals.
In reality, Kyle was a racist who bragged that he enjoyed killing, and proudly told stories of killing looters in a post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. He created tall tales to impress his fans, family and fellow soldiers and clearly spent a lot of time building and shaping his own myths. This would have been ripe territory for Eastwood to explore and deconstruct, yet he chose not to.
All that aside, American Sniper lacks conviction and courage. It’s a poor rehash of all the worst propaganda films we have seen in the past. Not only is it lacking in any themes other than “America good Arabs bad,” but the film is riddled with the laziest, most overwrought clichés. First, a child is killed, tugging at the heart-strings of our hero (and, presumably, the audience). The kid’s death is quickly brushed aside because it was, in fact, a righteous kill. Then we have the whole soldier misses his missus, soldierly banter, blah blah blah. I swear there’s even a scene where a guy talks about his wedding right before getting wasted.
It seems clear to me at least that Americans are so desperate for some sort of heroism to purge their toxic history that they’re willing to reach beyond credulity. They’ll make a legend out of a liar, and bestow glory on someone who deserves it not.
This article first appeared in the Leveller Vol.7, No. 4 (Jan/Feb 2015).
