American Sniper

This is based on the real life American SEAL Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) whose finely honed sniping skills see him take four tours to wartorn Iraq at the height of the tensions there, whilst trying to reconcile the fairly profound effects of the war on his psychology and on his family back at home. On that front, he is married to Taya (Sienna Miller) and by watching his increasingly perilous activities abroad and his struggles to adjust to life with her and their children when he returns each time, we get a powerful sense of the impact his job, and of his own childhod, is having on his mental stability. He's not a violent man, nor a drunken thug. Indeed, he is aware of the vacillations of his behaviour and also appreciates the equally torrid situation faced by Taya and his growing family as each trip leaves him more involuntarily distant and emotionally disconnected. Initially, I didn't think Cooper was the best choice here - he begins in just a little too lightweight a fashion, but thanks to some authentic looking recreations of their Iraqi scenarios we do get a gradually growing feeling for the dangers he and his squad face and he starts to exude something altogether more convincing. What also works well here is the ensemble effort from his fellow soldiers as bullets (and brains) whizz around and it becomes clear that technological advantage isn't as effective in an urban environment where martyrdom is a perfectly acceptable outcome for their foes. Politically, this is a little naive and tends to somewhat simplistically showcase the visitors as benign law-keepers in the face of local warlords who terrorise their own people with threats and even an electric drill, but if you can set that aside then what we get here is a potent took at the dangers of a modern war and of the lasting effects it can have. The ending isn't really explained very satisfactorily, but once this gets going it's a forecful biopic of a brave man.