American Sniper 2014

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: Although Cooper succeeds in resembling and sounding like the real Kyle, this isn't some cheap impersonation trick. Cooper gives maybe the best performance of his career. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: This movie is drowning in duty -- to say nothing of hoary storytelling devices and one embarrassing scene after the next for Sienna Miller as Mrs. Kyle. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: American Sniper, based on Navy SEAL marksman Chris Kyle's best-selling memoir, is both a tribute to the warrior and a lament for war. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: After 40 years of Hollywood counterpropaganda telling us war is necessarily corrupting and malign, its ablest practitioners thugs, loons or victims, "American Sniper" nobly presents the case for the other side. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: There's no freshness in either the domestic scenes or the combat sequences. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: The movie reality created by Eastwood is powerful and intense, and "American Sniper" is arguably his best picture since "Unforgiven." Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: It's a gritty, confident portrait of a man whose life may have been somewhat messier than this Hollywood version. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: This harrowing and intimate character study offers fairly blunt insights into the physical and psychological toll exacted on the front lines, yet strikes even its familiar notes with a sobering clarity ... Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: American Sniper is imperfect and at times a little corny, but also ambivalent and complicated in ways that are uniquely Eastwoodian. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It is to Cooper's credit - and Eastwood's - that Kyle does not come off as a lunk-headed cartoon hero, but a man who, if he doesn't struggle with his choices in the moment, is gravely affected by their consequences. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The film is, simply, a tragedy in which American certainty comes to grief against the rocks of the real world, and it views its central figure as a decent man doing indecent things for what he keeps telling himself is a greater good. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: A movie that can't find a credible perspective on its subject, despite a winning performance from Bradley Cooper in the title role. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: There's a difference between a film about a man reluctant to acknowledge the psychological toll of what he endured and a movie that basically doesn't want to talk about it or question it, or think about it, period. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: As a piece of direction, it's as taut as anything [Eastwood's] ever done. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Though it never uses the term "PTSD," American Sniper, at its best, is a devastating portrait of post-traumatic stress disorder. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: The 84-year-old's deep appreciation of the masculine -- its conflicts, its appeal, its evolving truths -- has added texture to our understanding of violence, warfare and more. At least as it is represented onscreen. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The fluidity and tension of the battle scenes is breathtaking, Eastwood at his cinematic best. But it's the ever-tightening knot inside of Kyle the director really wants to understand. Read more

Preston Jones, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: But the adrenaline can't replace perception, and despite Eastwood's deft staging of the Iraqi scenes, they don't bring viewers any closer to understanding why Kyle insists on repeatedly returning to the war zones. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: The film's just a repetition of context-free combat missions and one-dimensional targets. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: A taut, vivid and sad account of the brief life of the most accomplished marksman in American military annals, American Sniper feels very much like a companion piece-in subject, theme and quality-to The Hurt Locker. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Eastwood's impeccably crafted action sequences so catch us up in the chaos of combat we are almost not aware that we're watching a film at all. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: Cautiously, Eastwood has chosen to omit Kyle's self-mythologizing altogether, which is itself a distortion of his character. We're not watching a biopic. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The melancholy streak coursing throughout the picture speaks to the grand tragedy of war and those who wage it on the ground, guns in hand and hearts in throat, unaware at the moment of how radically different the rest of their lives will be. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Cooper nails the role of an American killing machine in Clint Eastwood's clear-eyed look at the Iraq War. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Both a devastating war movie and a devastating antiwar movie, a subdued celebration of a warrior's skill and a sorrowful lament over his alienation and misery. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Clint Eastwood has directed war movies before, but never one that focused on a single warrior. And he has an amazing one here ... Read more

John Powers, NPR: It speaks emotionally to audiences who sense that we lost something in Iraq, yet still want to honor the heroism of those who risked their lives for the cause, whether or not it was ultimately a great one. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: The best movies are ever-shifting, intelligent and open-hearted enough to expand alongside an audience. "American Sniper," Clint Eastwood's harrowing meditation on war, is built on this foundation of uncommon compassion. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Less a war movie than a western - the story of a lone gunslinger facing down his nemesis in a dusty, lawless place - it is blunt and effective, though also troubling. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: If American Sniper fails at being a truly great film, it is no fault of its star. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: American Sniper lifts director Clint Eastwood out of the doldrums that have plagued his last few films. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Bradley Cooper, as Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, and director Eastwood salute Kyle's patriotism best by not denying its toll. Their targets are clearly in sight, and their aim is true. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: A shrewd and very well-made picture. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: American Sniper has a perspective that's recognizable from the classic Westerns Eastwood has long been associated with, both as an actor and a director. It's an existential critique of violent machismo that doubles as a celebration of violence. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "American Sniper," Eastwood's 37th film as a director, is his darkest, tightest and most morally ambiguous drama since he shot the western dead with "Unforgiven." Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Young volunteers have been at war for 14 futile years, and the next Chris Kyle deserves to be understood. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: American Sniper romanticizes Kyle, whose bestselling memoir, which put him on talk-show appearances, included boastful stories of dubious authenticity. What remains is distilled and dramatized, a story of loss, the story of the universal soldier. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The message of American Sniper? There really isn't one, apart from Eastwood's career-long fascination with taciturn men called upon to do a dirty but necessary job well. Read more

Inkoo Kang, TheWrap: "The result is not unlike watching a suspenseful but highly repetitive video game, especially since nearly every Iraqi is seen through Kyle's highly perched rifle scope." Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Just as only Nixon could go to China, only Clint Eastwood could make a movie about an Iraq War veteran and infuse it with doubts, mission anxiety and ruination. Read more

Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun: Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is an often lazy and somewhat hazy propaganda film about American heroism and hell in the Iraq War. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: It's clearly Cooper's show. Substantially bulked up and affecting a believable Texas drawl, Cooper embodies Kyle's confidence, intensity and vulnerability. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Eastwood makes the moral stakes almost nonexistent. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," Shakespeare wrote. But is that true when the coronet is no more than a backward ballcap balancing a pair of wraparound shades? Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Mr. Eastwood's film lets this good and anguished man speak for himself, and discover himself, at his own pace. Read more