American Sniper

Bradley Cooper (left) portrays Navy SEAL Chris Kyle (right) in the adaptation of Kyle’s 2012 autobiography American Sniper

Navy SEAL Chris Kyle

AMERICAN SNIPER             C              
USA  (132 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  Clint Eastwood                    Official site

This is a perfect example of utterly conventional Hollywood filmmaking, as it takes a simplistic, one-dimensional approach to war, patriotism, and serving one’s country, becoming a jingoistic portrayal of an American warrior who thinks he knows what his country stands for by asking no questions, where no reservations are expressed, instead it typifies the gung-ho spirit of the armed forces in much the same way as pro football player Pat Tillman was made the military poster child for enlisting in the Army in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.  His idea was to kick some terrorist ass in Afghanistan and Iraq, filled with an ideological certainty that borders on brainwashing, much like the nation’s bullheaded approach for invading Iraq in the first place, where it was inconceivable in Tillman’s eyes that America wouldn’t prevail.  Unfortunately, as the Amir Bar-Lev documentary The Tillman Story (2010) points out, it’s much more complicated than that.  This glorification of heroism is a throwback to Howard Hawks’ SERGEANT YORK (1941), released just months before America’s entrance into World War II, the story of a World War I sharpshooter that became a war hero, one of the most decorated American soldiers in World War I even as he was a devout pacifist, which won Gary Cooper an Academy Award for Best Actor.  Even Gary Cooper, however, was reluctant to play a “too good to be true” character, but reconsidered after meeting Alvin York, the real person the film was based upon.  Interestingly, according to Eastwood himself, that was the first movie he ever saw, so it obviously left an impression on him, just as the images from movies and historical photographs leave impressions on other young soldiers about how to behave during wartime, where they often emulate what they see.  Similarly, a bulked up and more bland, ideologically toned down Bradley Cooper is excellent in the real-life role of Chris Kyle, a down-home Texas cowboy who rode the rodeo circuit early in his twenties, but when he witnesses the 9/11 attacks, he reconsiders his future, enlisting in the Navy SEAL special operations force at age thirty (age 24 in real life, initially rejected by the Navy SEALS due to rodeo injuries) where he also excels as a sharpshooter and is sent to the front lines in Iraq.  As a military sniper, his job is to protect the Marines on the ground by providing an overview vantage point they don’t have, picking off anyone suspected of initiating attacks against the Marine operations.  Adapted from Kyle’s 2012 book written three years after his military discharge, American Sniper:  The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, even the title leaves little doubt as to what the focus will be, though his modest, single-minded claim is always that he was simply doing his job by protecting the lives of others. 

While the film takes the viewer into the heart of ongoing military operations, almost exclusively seen through a guy’s perspective, it also has a stateside component where Sienna Miller as Kyle’s wife Taya offers a near-cringeworthy performance, though her character is horribly written and is equally one-dimensional, where she seems to have little sympathy or understanding for the unique adjustments soldiers must make upon returning home, as unfortunately they bring a bit of the war back with them.  Instead she nags at him continuously to be the person she married, telling him “I need you to be human again,” expecting him to adjust to her concept of a normal family life, while picking at him when he’s less than forthcoming about describing the horrors that he experienced.  Keeping much of his emotions locked in, it is only a matter of time before he is called back, as he is needed on the battlefield, eventually serving four tours of duty.  Easily the most overwrought and hysterical scenes are the ones when Kyle is in his sniper position in a moment of calm, casually talking to his wife back home, when suddenly a firefight will break out, cutting off normal communications, while she’s left whimpering on the other end of the line wondering what’s happened to her husband.  This guy is in special ops, for Christ’s sake, assigned the most dangerous missions, specially trained to be battle hardened, calm in the face of a storm, yet she doesn’t get it, remaining scared out of her wits and clueless about what this guy does for a living.  These scenes drain much of the energy from the picture, and there are several of them, where she becomes too much of a distraction, as it’s inconceivable to the public back home that wives would want to be on the phone with their husbands “during” military operations.  That’s exactly what could get them killed as it takes away from their primary focus at that moment.  The relationships with fellow soldiers may not get the same amount of screen time, but they are much more acutely drawn, as these guys understand each other, where they are trained to have each other’s backs, instilled with the same warrior mentality, yet they can also laugh in quieter moments, as they’ve each been through hell and back.

Certainly one aspect of war this film attempts to convey is the sense of urgency, where Kyle reflects the military mentality when he tells his wife that his family has time to wait, while the frontline soldiers don’t, which is what continually compels him to return.  Embellishing the mythic picture of an American hero, only Hollywood would come up with the storyline about a fellow sniper on the other side, a Syrian soldier fighting for al Qaeda named Mustafa (Sammy Sheik) who is actually an Olympic medalist in shooting.  Each is the best in their field, where the storyline continually pits one rival against the other, where much of it breaks down into a mind game, maintaining the psychological advantage, where these men become mythical legends within their own ranks.  Kyle is actually called “The Legend” by his fellow soldiers, where stories of his prowess spread throughout the military branches, where there’s a price on his head, dubbed the “Devil of Ramadi (Shaitan Ar-Ramadi),” placing a bounty on his head that eventually climbs to $80,000, which distinguishes him even in the eyes of the enemy.  This elevates his importance, as it reveals how essential it is militarily for each side to knock out the other’s best sniper.  Both are capable of inflicting huge casualties and altering the success or failure of significant missions.  Much of this is oversimplified, playing out like a western in the American West, inevitably leading to an ultimate shoot out, the winner being the anointed hero.  In Eastwood’s film, however, it nearly brings his unit down, as it exposes their position, subject to an unprecedented attack.  Taking place in a sandstorm, it has a dreamlike quality about it, turning into a battlefield of the dead, as men around them keep dropping like flies, but more continue to storm ahead, taking the place of those fallen beside them.  It offers a feeling for the senselessness of war, yet it’s also combined with the solemn tributes paid to those making the ultimate sacrifice, as Eastwood’s depiction of a military funeral is easily the best thing in the film, perhaps the only scene that touches the right grace note, (2014) soundtrack - Ennio Morricone -The Funeral - YouTube (2:05).  Kyle’s successive returns back home become more detached, told with little fanfare, yet the war continues to intrude into his life, where one of the Eastwood touches is Kyle continually hears the sounds of war taking place even when sitting comfortably on his couch back home, thoughts and sounds he wants to tune out and forget, where he can barely make eye contact or even acknowledge a soldier who graciously thanks him for saving his life.  The brief glimpse in hospitals of wounded veterans in recovery feels essential, even though it’s barely touched upon, preferring instead to dwell on the more dramatic war footage, where only at the end does the Hollywood depiction take a turn into vintage archival material, showing the actual funeral of a fallen hero, leaving the audience in the solemnity of a hushed silence, where the closing credits play with no accompanying music.

While the film attempts to honor and eulogize fallen soldiers, but in idolizing this figure, what the film overlooks are the actual hate-filled views expressed by Kyle in his book, as his zealous American fervor is spewed with xenophobic and racist venom, where killing Iraqis is the answer to his own effusive bitterness and contempt, as he is unwavering in his belief that everyone he shot was a “bad guy.”  “I hate the damn savages.  I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the Iraqis…The enemy are savages and despicably evil.  My only regret is that I didn’t kill more.”  Chris Kyle is actually a younger version of the grizzled old Korean war veteran Walt Kowalski portrayed by Eastwood himself in GRAN TORINO (2008), where his prejudiced views separate him from the changing and more complicated world around him that he can’t begin to understand, as in his mind he’s narrowed it down to overly simplistic, black and white perceptions of good or evil.  In other words, we are right, and they are wrong.  Intentionally or not, much like John Wayne in a John Ford western, most particularly THE SEARCHERS (1956), this film makes a hero out of Kyle, a special ops patriot that took pleasure in killing and dehumanizing the enemy, recalling the frontier spirit of Ford’s westerns where “the only good injun is a dead injun,” which has now evolved into “the only good Iraqi is a dead Iraqi,” where there are a lot of Chris Kyles in the world who believe in God and country and the American flag, while anyone questioning this view is looked upon with traitorous suspicion and contempt bordering on hatred, equivalent to aiding and abetting the enemy, reminiscent of the derisive and often violent sentiments expressed in the pro-war slogan “America, love it or leave it” during the Vietnam era of the 60’s.  In the unquestioning eyes of the true believers, Kyle’s unambiguous belligerence represents not only the embodiment of America’s cowboy mentality (The Cowboy Myth, George W. Bush, and the War with Iraq), but may also explain his considerable success on the battlefield, as there is no soldier remorse, no guilt or crisis of moral conscience about the act of killing when he regrets none of his actions, where in this case his complete lack of subtlety or imagination is what makes him particularly emblematic of today’s American military hero.  When faced with the choice between depicting the truth or the myth, however, Eastwood decided to go with the myth, which should come as no surprise to anyone, as peddling myths is the very foundation of what Hollywood does for a living, which is also what makes the film so predictably conventional.     

The Tillman Story

Kevin Tillman, with his mother, Mary, testifying about the death of his brother, Pat, a fellow Army Ranger

THE TILLMAN STORY         B                     

USA  (94 mi)  2010  d:  Amir Bar-Lev      Official site

People have asked, “Why is Pat so special that so much attention is given to his death?” I understand that question. Thousands of soldiers and Marines have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of their families have also been lied to, yet those deaths have not received the attention Pat’s did. And Pat’s death continues to be in the news.

Pat’s story initially became news because he was well known for having played in the NFL. The government used his fame to create propaganda for the war. Pat is not more important or special than any of the others who have fought in these wars, but the truth of what happened to Pat — and to every soldier who has died — is important. The truth shines a light on systematic corruption, incompetence and lack of accountability in the military and in government.

Over the last five years, the Pentagon and Congress have had numerous opportunities to hold accountable those responsible for the coverup of Pat’s death. Each time they’ve failed. The government didn't just lie to us; it lied to a nation.

—Mary “Dannie” Tillman

Here’s a documentary about a recent newsworthy event where the audience already knows the outcome, as it was plastered all over the front pages, which makes it all the more difficult to make a compelling film that continues to hold the audience’s attention.  The real surprise here is not what happened to Pat Tillman, a pro football player for the St. Louis Cardinals, who after 9/11 enlisted into the U.S. Army Rangers along with his brother, Kevin, turning down a multi-million dollar contract to serve in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was eventually killed in 2004 by fratricide, or friendly fire, but that his story of selfless patriotism and heroism was immediately co-opted by various organizations and used as propaganda to help promote their respective causes, not the least of which was the American Armed Forces which immediately used him as a poster boy to help recruit young soldiers.  What we discover surrounding this film is an arrogance of war that includes a wholesale contempt for the truth.  While on the same battlefield where Tillman was killed, but ten minutes away, his brother Kevin was immediately quarantined by the Army and no one was allowed to tell him or his family what happened.  The initial reports announced that Tillman was killed in an act of valiant heroism, killed by the Taliban while saving the lives of his men, even constructing his final words “Let’s take the fight to the enemy!” that he was alleged to have shouted at his troops, which was the Army version reported at the family funeral.  But once the family got their hands on the 3000 pages of documents used by the Army to conduct their investigation of his death, most of it was lined out, suppressing the names of all the officers and individual soldiers interviewed, leaving the family wondering what really happened, where it soon became clear the Army, in direct violation of military regulations, burned Tillman’s uniform, body armor, and diary, all the evidence that could be used to determine what actually happened instead of the fabricated version touted by the military that immediately awarded Tillman a Silver Star, a Purple Heart, and a posthumous promotion to corporal for his valor, apparently figuring the family would be happy with nationwide adulation.

What is clear is that from day one, the Army has continued to misrepresent the truth about how he died and instead glorified Tillman into some kind of larger than life, mythical war hero.  When meeting the members of the Tillman family, from his mother Dannie, his father Patrick Sr, his brothers Kevin and Richard, and widowed spouse Marie, their family has a commendable history of service in the armed forces that Pat Tillman may have wanted to live up to.  Also since his brother enlisted at the same time, it’s possible he may have joined to protect his younger brother.  His actual reasons were never made public, as he was a private man who never wanted glory.  Instead he was a guy who rode a bicycle to the Cardinal training camp and never owned a cell phone, an avowed atheist who studied all the religions in order to show due respect for each, while studying Emerson, Homer, and even Noam Chomsky, where the picture his family paints of a quiet, reflective individual is radically different from the flag waving, Rambo-like status that quickly took shape in the media, very similar to the Jessica Lynch story, the Army private who was reportedly captured and being tortured in a hospital, requiring the heroic rescue of a special ops team whose mission was mysteriously delayed until after the arrival of an Army cameraman who could film the rescue live, all fodder for the evening news which ran the story as fed to them, only to discover afterwards that none of it was true, as she was never captured or tortured, but was wounded and being well taken care of in a hospital, with no need for any special forces.  Lynch afterwards accused the government of embellishing her story as part of a concerted propaganda effort to gain support for the war, a claim Tillman could not make in death.  His family was obviously uncomfortable with how Tillman was being misrepresented at the memorial service orchestrated by the Bush Administration that included high ranking Army officers and political dignitaries, where his younger brother Richard took the podium during the live coverage and countered “He’s not with God, he’s fucking dead.  He’s not religious.  So thanks for your thoughts, but he’s fucking dead,” causing the networks to immediately shut down their live feed.    

A few month’s later, the Army changed their story and announced he was killed in the heat of battle from friendly fire, calling it “the fog of war,” continuing to herald his heroism on the battlefield. Tillman’s mother, who was a schoolteacher, initiated a relentless barrage of phone calls trying to figure out how to identify the names in the Army report, literally spending several years of her life doing this, eventually quitting her job.  Mostly she came up empty until she discovered Stan Goff, a retired special-ops expert who is an author who runs an Army-related website:  Stan Goff.  While Goff never knew Tillman, his experience in Special Forces helped the family understand the mindset and vernacular used by combat soldiers in describing the events in the report.  What they attempted to do was fill in the names and missing pieces for all the blacked out details in order to make the report more understandable.  Director Bar-Lev even returns to the canyon where Tillman was shot and reconstructs the events of that day, where his unit was unfortunately separated due to a broken down vehicle.  When Tillman heard a blast and attempted to climb a hill to join and protect the other half behind him, he was mistakenly shot by his own men.  As to why highly trained Rangers would shoot at Tillman who was about 40 yards away, reportedly shouting out at them “I’m Pat Fucking Tillman!,” several soldiers remarked in the report that they were “excited” and “wanted to stay in the firefight.”  Unlike the Army which still contends they received incoming rounds of mortar attack, Goff and the family ultimately concluded there was no credible evidence the Rangers were ever under attack, but it was more likely a gun that simply misfired and the over-reactions of trigger-happy 19-year olds.  When they finally identified a moving target off in the distance climbing up a hill, they moved in for the kill.  “It was not a fog of war. It was a lust to fight.”

After several years of getting stonewalled from military inquiries, Tillman’s father, a lawyer, fired off a blistering letter where point by point he discounts the accuracy and credibility of the Army’s official report, basically calling it a fraud and accusing the military investigators of a cover-up.  Two days later, an Associated Press reporter received an anonymously leaked top-secret memo sent by General Stanley McChrystal to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, top Pentagon Generals and senior White House officials within days of Tillman’s death which acknowledges his death by “friendly fire,” but also warns of potential political damage should this become public knowledge.  All of which suggests that military officials were aware of this while they were concocting various fabrications on live TV as early as the memorial service.  3-star General Philip Kensinger, who spoke at the memorial service, was singled out for blame precisely because he was retired, though he is seen on camera expressing amazement that after a career of following orders that he was singled out for following this one.  This led to a sham Congressional hearing which the family attended, moderated by California Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman, where Kensinger and most of the Republicans were not present, but one by one the highest ranking 4-Star Generals in the land, including McChrystal, Richard Myers and John Abizaid, as well as then retired Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, used the words “I don’t recall” some 82 times in their testimony, with no follow up questions whatsoever, only polite comments about holding the military in high regard, allowing cover for the  military to continue to avoid telling the truth while escaping any kind of accountability.  Ironically, it was General McChrystal, despite knowing the true circumstances of Tillman’s death, who signed the order to award him a Silver Star, claiming “devastating enemy fire.”  Years later McChrystal was promoted to head all of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan.  Ultimately, no soldier was ever held responsible for Tillman’s death, no Bush Administration official was ever held accountable for inventing a false scenario surrounding his death, which was probably created ahead of time in the event he was killed, as he was the highest profile soldier in the Armed Forces, the only one to receive a personal letter from the Secretary of Defense commending them for enlisting, or for inventing Jessica Lynch’s fake heroic rescue, even staging it on camera, or for fabricating the trumped up lies that were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, a country that attacked no one and had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, not that the truth matters.