Clint Eastwood is a director I enjoyed as much as I did his acting chutzpah in his younger days. Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino and Unforgiven are some of his best works. Mildly disappointing is his treatment of the rather incredible story of an ordinary human being caught up in extra ordinary events to become one of the most celebrated solders of one of the most celebrated special forces teams of the planet. Ironically what is jarring is not the violence and the killing but the transition from war time to peace time. The drums beating in the background of the killing scenes, Bradley Cooper’s over reliance on his eyes while mangling his otherwise perfect method acting routine- all take away points from the fact that Chris Kyle was both a great human and a great soldier. Some of the scenes seem quite implausible, but war is as implausible to us sitting in the arm chair as peace is to savages. Watch it for how horrible war is, without the expectations ofa genius. Keep your expectations low and this is a still a really good movie.
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