Tonight I finally was able to get a night with my wife where we were both free to go see a movie. American Sniper was released on 16 January. Tonight is 28 February. The local theater is still playing it, and the theater was packed. There were perhaps four empty seats among the crowd. I don't know how many people in the audience had seen it before, but except for two elderly people who began to leave when the credits rolled, everyone else stayed silent in their seats until the screen went black.
I won't say much about the film in case some of you haven't seen it, except that it's a great film. There was a lot to recognize in it. Only a small amount of Hollywood BS was present, mostly for the sake of giving a general audience the kind of story they knew how to hear. Eastwood did a good job.
To Chris Kyle.
5 comments:
I'm planning to see it again, this week if possible. I've read the book as well, also well worth the time. There are, naturally, some differences. I thought I'd do a review of them here at some point.
You may certainly do that, if you wish. All I ask is that you put it below a page break with a warning above it, so that people who haven't seen the film can avoid the review if they want to do so. If you don't know how to do that, just compose the post but save it rather than publishing, and let me know. I can put it in for you.
It's funny, but I didn't walk out thinking 'wow, that's a great movie', though I thought it was really good, and tremendously important, and incredibly well crafted from the acting to the direction, to the sound. I really don't think it was made to be a 'great movie' so much as a cultural touchstone- a marker for all of us, and an honor to the man- Chris Kyle, and his comrades in arms. It was looking to be something more than 2 hours of entertainment, and I think at that it succeeded greatly.
Maybe that's what I meant when I said it was a great film.
I took my wife to see it, and we've talked about it on and off since. There was a lot about the movie she didn't get, which those of us who were there understood by recognition. One of the things that's great about the movie was that it prompted her to ask questions I didn't know she needed answered, and me to think about what needed to be said to understand.
I believe that when you say it, but when other people say it, I think they mean something a little different. Maybe not. Anyway, Yes, in that way, it's a great movie. I suppose I wasn't commenting on you saying it so much as the odd thought I'd had about the description when I'd heard it before.
There's been quite a lot of commentary that the conversations it has started, particularly between couples who have gone through deployment, have been the real power of this movie. I don't doubt that's true.
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