To some on the left, it glorifies an unjust war while paying homage to an unapologetic killer with a simplistic, good-versus-evil view of the world.
Which is closer to the truth? Neither, say the movie’s makers.
In recent interviews, Eastwood, screenwriter Jason Hall and star Bradley Cooper have said they are dismayed by attempts to ascribe political meanings to what they see as primarily a portrait of real-life Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and the Iraq War’s impact on him.
The movie “certainly has nothing to do with any (political) parties or anything,” Eastwood told the Toronto Star. “These fellows who are professional soldiers, Navy personnel or what have you, go in for a certain reason … and there’s no political aspect there other than the fact that a lot of things happen in war zones.”
“For me, and for Clint, this movie was always a character study about what the plight is for a soldier …” Cooper told the Daily Beast. “But I can’t control how people are gonna use this movie as a tool, or what they pick and choose (to argue).”
No, he can’t.
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And as in his Oscar-winning “Unforgiven,” Hall and Eastwood — who has said he opposed the invasion of Iraq — seem less interested in glorifying the act of killing than in exploring the psychic toll it takes on the men who do it.
“The cost is man, the toll is man, and it’s this man and every other soldier that fights,” Hall told Variety. “If we understand that, maybe we won’t be so hasty into jumping into war.”
If there’s a message in “American Sniper,” it may be that Americans could do a better job of understanding what our veterans go through, and of taking care of them when they return.
Then again, maybe the message of “American Sniper” is whatever you want it to be.
“It is one man’s war — not the nation’s,” wrote Scott Beauchamp, an Iraq veteran (and no stranger to controversy himself), in Mic. “While (other war) films have loud, overt messages that allow us to confront the issues head on, ‘American Sniper’ is sort of an empty cipher, waiting for us to project already existent emotions onto the screen.”
