American Sniper: Pt. 3
Feb. 9th, 2015 05:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyPreviously on American Sniper:
If you’ll allow me a brief digression, I want to talk about what it takes to make a good war movie.
A few years ago, I probably would have said that my favourite depiction of war on film was Apocalypse Now. Maybe Battle of Algiers. These days, it’s probably this:
Ostensibly a comedy and I’m sure made for a fraction American Sniper’s budget, this episode proved to be so controversial that it still upsets Michael Gove, which gives it extra street cred in my books.
You’ll notice that there’s not a lot of visual sophistication going on in this scene. Why, there’s not even shakycam! How can you have gritty realism without shakycam? No heads explode. It’s a bit desaturated, but probably not on purpose. There’s a laugh track.
Also, the previous episodes have built up the characters to be shameless cowards, naïve jingoists, and/or generally selfish, venal people—not just in WWI, but throughout the course of British history. No one does unsympathetic characters like British comedy. And yet. I cried. Did you cry? The fact that they’re unsympathetic, that they’re flawed and awful and scared, actually makes the inevitability of their deaths more compelling, more human. These characters aren’t sheepdogs. They’re us under slightly different conditions, and this final scene illustrates, more than any other I can think of, the horror of war and the bravery possible in the bleakest, most absurd of circumstances.
By propping up its hero to be infallible, American Sniper fails at the most basic level when it comes to an honest depiction of war. THE LEGEND's only character flaw is that he just cares too goshdarned much, and he is just too manly to talk about his feelings. Even putting aside politics, and whether it’s responsible or ethical to make a film celebrating an illegal war that killed 1.5 million Iraqis, any war movie must first acknowledge that wars are fought by people. By turning soldiers into demigods who must be reassured every five minutes of their own awesomeness, American Sniper desecrates the lives and deaths of every soldier and civilian killed in every war, ever.
Okay, that’s out of the way. On with the funny stuff.
Now THE LEGEND is back home and THE LEGEND, JR., is somehow a toddler as well as no longer made out of plastic. Not that you can tell that by his acting.
THE LEGEND is all freaked out by a mechanic in the auto shop using a drill, but it too manly for an actual emotion to appear on his face.
Ginger: That guy better not fuck up my car.
Some random kid recognizes him. Apparently THE LEGEND saved his life in Fallujah, but THE LEGEND is too important to remember him. The kid tells him that he’s awesome. He has no leg but he’s grateful to be alive and also not one of those vets with PTSD who won’t talk about it. Touché, legless guy!
Ginger: Sacrifice, motherfucker!
Legless invites him to hang out at the VA sometime, then tells THE LEGEND, JR., that his dad is awesome in case there was any doubt in the audience’s mind.
Then he salutes THE LEGEND and thanks him for his service.
Ginger (who I should point out was in the military): You don’t salute an NCO. I know they didn’t give Kyle a medal of honour because they’re campaigning for him to be given one because of this goddamn movie.
THE LEGEND has fathered a new plastic baby. It’s a girl!
Merrick: It would have been embarrassing if he had the daughter first and then the son.
Ginger: What’s with the maternity ward? Did he go back in a time machine?
Merrick: American healthcare.
THE LEGEND is all upset because the nurse in the 1950s maternity ward is paying attention to another baby instead of his daughter. I guess he can’t get in because it’s the 1950s? Anyway, he punches on the glass and screams, which I’m told is the best thing for newborn babies.
Ginger: I’m gonna break down the door like Fallujah, bitch!
The one person who doesn’t think THE LEGEND is awesome is MRS THE LEGEND, who just doesn’t understand. She’s holding the plastic baby and whining that she is “making memories all by [herself].”
Sabs: Don’t you know that he’s saving America? And freedom!
Merrick: He’s stopping them from busting down her door in San Diego. Is he gay?
Sabs: Well, there is the guy with the mustache and dreamy eyes.
Fistula: What a terribly written role.
Sabs: SINGLE TEAR.
Wow, the baby is even more obviously plastic in this scene.
She gets some profound dialogue like, “If you think the war isn’t changing you, you’re wrong. You can only circle the flames for so long. It’s true.” You can tell that it’s profound because he leaves the room without even a, “shucks ma’am.”
TOUR THREE THANK FUCK I thought my eyeballs were going to explode from boredom. Anyway, Biggles (remember him?) and THE LEGEND are driving around after a courier or something. Biggles, naturally, tells him that he’s awesome. But THE LEGEND has much more than his own awesomeness on his mind. He is giving Biggles shit for buying his fiancée a diamond ring from savages in Iraq.
This, by the way, is what we get instead of a scene where Biggles talks about his girl back home in Iowa. Given that he gets shot in the next scene, it technically fills the same function, and if this movie were in any way clever, I’d think it was even a subversion. As it is, it’s played totally straight and they have a discussion about the ethics of blood diamonds that concludes with THE LEGEND saying that Biggles is gay and going to marry a dude. Also Biggles references Keyser Soze and annoys me by reminding me that I could be watching The Usual Suspects instead of this.
Anyway, what’s the matter, THE LEGEND? Iraqis are good enough to shoot but not good enough to sell you discount diamonds?
Mrs. Mustafa: Why must you go and fight their wars? You’re not even Iraqi!
Mustafa: I must fight them here so that we don’t have to fight them back home. Do you want them raining down white phosphorous on Damascus, or kicking in doors in Aleppo?
Mrs. Mustafa: But what about us? We’re your family!
Mustafa: Do you want our son to be raped in Guantanamo Bay? These people are savages, habibi! They must be stopped.
Mrs. Mustafa (crying): Why does it have to be you who fights? Let someone else go.
Mustafa: God demands it of me.
(Note that this scene is subtitled. He says “Allah,” but the subtitles say “God.”)
Mrs. Mustafa: You owe it to your plastic baby to get back in one piece. You owe it to me! (sobs)
Just kidding none of these characters have any lines. I admit my dialogue is pretty clunky, but it would improved the movie 400%.
Ginger: Because you know when you’re a secret insurgent sniper, you put a picture of yourself shooting at the Olympics on your wall.
Mustafa knows parkour.
Sabs: Team Mustafa! Anyone else Team Mustafa?
Merrick: I’m Team Mustafa.
Ginger: Well we’re not Team Punisher.
Sabs: This film would be so much better if Tarantino did it. There’d be blood everywhere and he’d shoot Saddam in the face.
There is more discussion of engagement rings in this movie than in an average chick-flick. It’s mercifully interrupted by Biggles getting popped in the head.
Sabs: Is this the emotional part? Is Random Marine #56 gonna die? I’m in suspense!
Merrick: He’s choking on his own blood so he can’t be like, “…Tell my mom…”
Ginger: I thought he was going to take off and go chasing Mustafa. “You’re good bud! Gotta go!”
Sabs: Do they get to make calls like that?
Fistula: Their decision-making is consensus based.
Ginger: No one blocked it.
Sabs: I liked this movie better when it was called Call of Duty and you could actually play it as opposed to watch.
Merrick: Are you getting Call of Duty mixed up with Doom?
Mustache gets popped in the head. THE LEGEND shows an emotion, but just one, and it was too brief to screencap.
More American-flag-draped caskets get shown in this movie than were televised during the entire Bush Administration.
At Mustache’s funeral, Mustache’s mom is sad at the pointlessness of war. She reads a letter that he wrote expanding on his incoherent and vague anti-war sentiments. I suppose this is the bit at which some overly generous critics have called the movie subversive, but as we’ll see in a sec, it’s not remotely subversive.
Sabs: Yeah make sure it’s good and closed.
Ginger: The last thing the world needs is a SEAL to come back as a zombie. Pour concrete over that shit.
MRS THE LEGEND wants to know what THE LEGEND thinks of Mustache’s last letter. THE LEGEND thinks the letter killed Mustache. Mustache died of lack of patriotism.
Merrick: It’s unusual. Americans aren’t usually into victim-blaming.
Sabs: Well you know maybe if he had people telling him he was awesome all the time like THE LEGEND does, he wouldn’t have lost faith and died. Way to go, THE LEGEND.
THE LEGEND visits Biggles in hospital. Biggles is going to be blind. But the good news is that and finds out he bought a proper, non-savage-sourced diamond that’s just from Sierra Leone to propose to his girlfriend after all. And the even better news is that Biggles may be blind but he’s still able to tell THE LEGEND that he’s awesome.
After presumably unsatisfying sex with their clothes still on, MRS THE LEGEND accuses her husband of having a death wish. She demands that he tell her why he does it. He’s like “I do it to protect you.” She begs him to quit. Didn’t they have this conversation half an hour ago?
Merrick: Last time she had one single tear. I don’t think she has any now.
Just accept it, MRS THE LEGEND. He loves killing Iraqis more than he loves you.
She threatens to leave him so he hugs her into submission and the scene mercifully cuts to:
TOUR FOUR!
Exposition Guy tells THE LEGEND that Biggles died in surgery. At least that brave little trooper had one last chance to tell THE LEGEND that he is awesome.
THE LEGEND snipes some guy with an RPG and a kid runs over to see what the commotion is about. Naturally, our hero takes aim at the kid and while begging him to not pick the RPG up. But the kid can’t hear—because THE LEGEND is on a distant rooftop—so he picks up the RPG.
Fortunately, the kid spontaneously drops the RPG so our hero doesn’t need to have his conscience sullied with the blood of a third little kid. He cries. Kinda.
Merrick: Ah! So he’s got some humanity left.
Ginger: No, he’s becoming a pussy.
Merrick: THAT’S GONNA GET YOU KILLED!
At this point we realized that there was about half an hour of movie left so we took a booze break.
Fistula: In another 20 minutes, Taya’s gonna be, “why do you do what you do?” It does capture the brutal cyclical nature of war.
Sabs: I’m disappointed at the lack of pink mist. This is supposed to be a war movie. The main point of war movies is pink mist.
To be fair, I'm like this about every movie that's not by Tarantino.
Merrick: I wonder what Eastwood would do if you suggested that he make a film from the Iraqi POV and put some pink mist in it.
Sabs: He would print out the email, put it on a chair, and then shout at that chair.
Uh anyway back to the movie.
Today’s Meeting Agenda:
1. Shutting this shit down.
2. Gearing up.
3. Target secured. All clear.
4. Go! Go! Go!
For the final act of this infinitely long movie, it’s a SNIPE-OFF!
Merrick: This is like Enemy At the Gates but worse.
Ginger: ‘sup Moose!
Fistula: IT’S A TRAP!
THE LEGEND can somehow see Bad Guy Mustafa 2000 miles away. Random Grunt #93 tells him that it’s an impossible shot. None of his other friends believe him either.
Merrick: Use the Force!
THE LEGEND (mumbling): I will do it for Biggles.
Ginger: For bagels?
Fistula: Free dozen!
THE LEGEND shoots Bad Guy Mustafa in slow motion. Zack Snyder is the reason why we can't have nice things.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! But all the Al Qaedas are now after them! But it’s okay because Biggles would be proud, and the token black sidekick tells him that he’s awesome. Also Kyle’s nickname is now legend. Like, they just call him legend.
Merrick: This reminds me of a first draft of Blackhawk Down.
Sabs: Why are they still fighting? The war’s over when you off the main bad guy.
Random Grunt #105: GIT SOME MOTHERFUCKERS!
Sabs: Bets on whether the token black guy gets it?
Merrick: I’ll bet you a six pack of Innis & Gunn that he dies in the next two minutes.
Sabs: He is the only black guy in the movie.
Ginger: That’s diverse for a special forces unit.
Sabs, two minutes later: DAMMIT! Good thing Merrick doesn’t drink.
THE LEGEND calls his wife and tells her he’s ready to come home. In the middle of a firefight.
Ginger: You got dinner ready?
Then there’s a big dramatic sandstorm and you can’t see anything, so there’s no point in screencapping it. Picture this but way less cool and I guess without the sandworm, though you can't tell for sure from how it's shot.
Sabs: Whelp, the war’s over.
Ginger: Time for a beer.
Sabs: He’s gonna get spit on by a hippie.
Merrick: BABYKILLER!
Sabs: Oh he’s in a bar and he didn’t even call his wife to tell her he was back home. He needed a minute.
THE LEGEND: I needed a minute.
MRS THE LEGEND: The kids miss you. Come home.
Fistula: Oh baby scold me like you used to!
He’s watching TV and we hear war effects but the TV screen is blank.
Ginger: In his mind, though? Full Metal Jacket.
He got rid of the Beard of Sorrow. There’s a whole bit about PTSD and he freaks out over a dog that gets too aggressive with his kid and I guess this is the anti-war bit? It’s quite dull and, instead of sending the message that PTSD is a very serious deal that destroys lives, it sends the message that war is a gazillion times more awesome than being at home with your family and your TV that isn't even on.
He does not kill the dog, in case you were worried about that.
Because of the dog thing, THE LEGEND needs to go to a shrink who clearly doesn’t understand FREEDOM.
The shrink tells him he’s awesome. Or at least that he is the best at killing dudes. The shrink asks him if he regrets anything and he’s like NO REGRETS! FREEDOM! The only thing that haunts him is that he couldn’t save more guys. So much for the anti-war thing.
He is the actual least interesting protagonist in the history of ever.
The shrink takes him to see a bunch of injured vets. One guy who only has one functional hand left tells him that smoking saved his life. AMMURCA! FREEDOM! THE LEGEND teaches the injured vets to shoot and they tell him that he’s awesome for giving them their balls back. Whatta guy.
Then we get a bunch of family scenes that are even more boring than the shooting scenes. THE LEGEND picks up his old cowboy boots. Thrilling! He and his daughter look at a horse. Thrilling! MRS THE LEGEND brushes her teeth. Thrilling!
THE LEGEND takes THE LEGEND, JR., hunting. Actual quote:
“It’s a heck of a thing to stop a beatin’ heart. That’s why we’re gonna do it together. Be calm, confident.”
Fistula: And don’t be a pussy.
But we don’t get to see if THE LEGEND, JR., inherited dear ol’ dad’s hunting prowess, because the only thing that THE LEGEND is interested in aiming a gun at is his wife.
This scene is so creepy. He’s actually walking around with a loaded gun and his wife and kids around and pointing it at them. That’s like, rule #1 of gun safety. It's framed like he's about to kill her, but they're both joking around and happy.
But MRS THE LEGEND just tells him he’s awesome (of course) and it’s reaffirmed that he still only lasts two minutes in bed. Okay.
But he can’t have two-minute sex with her or play with his kids because he needs to go to the range with one of his PTSD charity cases. His kids beg him to stay! He’s still waving the gun around because guns don’t kill people, organ failure kills people.
He just leaves the gun on a random ledge, which is why he gets killed and rule #2 of gun safety. As you know, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
She watches as he drives off with his killer.
Merrick: Women’s intuition! Something’s wrong!
Sabs: We don’t even get to see him die?
His coffin is covered with little medals; I assume one medal for every dude he killed. When I die, I want one medal for every movie I snarked, and extra for this one because it was so long.
Merrick: I can see there’s not a wet eye in the house.
Fistula: That was austere.
Ginger: The moral of the story: you can kill as many people as you want. Just don’t try to help anyone. He became a pussy and he got killed.
Fistula: The downfall of America.
Sabs: The Hells Angels came out for the funeral! That was nice of them.
Merrick: Maybe after the credits, Red Skull shows up.
Fistula: Or Howard the Duck.
Howard the Duck does not show up, sadly. No, there is no point to this movie. There is nothing redeeming about this movie. Not even—despite what Seth Rogen had to say about it—Bradley Cooper’s acting.
One wonders, then, why anyone would watch this or think it was anything beyond a boring, badly-structured, overlong piece of dreck. After finishing, though, we had a conversation that led to a small moment of revelation for me. We were chatting about Tarkovsky and Von Trier and Glass (someone, possibly me, compared the repetitive nature of this movie to Glass’s recursions, if said recursions were shit) and I realized that I have willingly sat through a lot of Von Trier movies even though they are dull as fuck and full of rape, because there is a cultural meme that high art is supposed to be boring and I was trying to impress film geeks.
I think American Sniper is like that. I think it’s Von Trier for rednecks. They suffer through this movie because it makes them feel like they are better people for having suffered through it, when in fact it is just really long and boring and slightly rapey.
The film is exactly like watching a 14-year-old boy play Call of Duty when he won’t let you have a turn at it. It’s the epic love story of Clint Eastwood and the gritty, desaturated colour correction options available in Final Cut Pro. It is, quite bluntly, boring as fuck and ought not to have been made in the first place. This has nothing to do with propaganda or whether Chris Kyle lied in his autobiography and everything to do with the rules of storytelling that involve, among other things, narrative arc and character development and not boring your audience to the point where no amount of beer is going to make your film fun to watch. There’s so little to talk about that I don’t know how I managed to write such a long screenshot review. This movie has bad politics, but commits the far worse sin of having no plot whatsoever. The cinematography is amateur. Sienna Miller's acting is only a cut above the plastic baby's. And if you want to see Bradley Cooper play a gun-toting maniac, just watch Guardians of the Galaxy again; it’s far more nuanced, believable, and well-acted.
Hope you enjoyed this review in inverse proportion to how much I liked the movie!
Today's quote is:
If you’ll allow me a brief digression, I want to talk about what it takes to make a good war movie.
A few years ago, I probably would have said that my favourite depiction of war on film was Apocalypse Now. Maybe Battle of Algiers. These days, it’s probably this:
Ostensibly a comedy and I’m sure made for a fraction American Sniper’s budget, this episode proved to be so controversial that it still upsets Michael Gove, which gives it extra street cred in my books.
You’ll notice that there’s not a lot of visual sophistication going on in this scene. Why, there’s not even shakycam! How can you have gritty realism without shakycam? No heads explode. It’s a bit desaturated, but probably not on purpose. There’s a laugh track.
Also, the previous episodes have built up the characters to be shameless cowards, naïve jingoists, and/or generally selfish, venal people—not just in WWI, but throughout the course of British history. No one does unsympathetic characters like British comedy. And yet. I cried. Did you cry? The fact that they’re unsympathetic, that they’re flawed and awful and scared, actually makes the inevitability of their deaths more compelling, more human. These characters aren’t sheepdogs. They’re us under slightly different conditions, and this final scene illustrates, more than any other I can think of, the horror of war and the bravery possible in the bleakest, most absurd of circumstances.
By propping up its hero to be infallible, American Sniper fails at the most basic level when it comes to an honest depiction of war. THE LEGEND's only character flaw is that he just cares too goshdarned much, and he is just too manly to talk about his feelings. Even putting aside politics, and whether it’s responsible or ethical to make a film celebrating an illegal war that killed 1.5 million Iraqis, any war movie must first acknowledge that wars are fought by people. By turning soldiers into demigods who must be reassured every five minutes of their own awesomeness, American Sniper desecrates the lives and deaths of every soldier and civilian killed in every war, ever.
Okay, that’s out of the way. On with the funny stuff.
Now THE LEGEND is back home and THE LEGEND, JR., is somehow a toddler as well as no longer made out of plastic. Not that you can tell that by his acting.
THE LEGEND is all freaked out by a mechanic in the auto shop using a drill, but it too manly for an actual emotion to appear on his face.
Ginger: That guy better not fuck up my car.
Some random kid recognizes him. Apparently THE LEGEND saved his life in Fallujah, but THE LEGEND is too important to remember him. The kid tells him that he’s awesome. He has no leg but he’s grateful to be alive and also not one of those vets with PTSD who won’t talk about it. Touché, legless guy!
Ginger: Sacrifice, motherfucker!
Legless invites him to hang out at the VA sometime, then tells THE LEGEND, JR., that his dad is awesome in case there was any doubt in the audience’s mind.
Then he salutes THE LEGEND and thanks him for his service.
Ginger (who I should point out was in the military): You don’t salute an NCO. I know they didn’t give Kyle a medal of honour because they’re campaigning for him to be given one because of this goddamn movie.
THE LEGEND has fathered a new plastic baby. It’s a girl!
Merrick: It would have been embarrassing if he had the daughter first and then the son.
Ginger: What’s with the maternity ward? Did he go back in a time machine?
Merrick: American healthcare.
THE LEGEND is all upset because the nurse in the 1950s maternity ward is paying attention to another baby instead of his daughter. I guess he can’t get in because it’s the 1950s? Anyway, he punches on the glass and screams, which I’m told is the best thing for newborn babies.
Ginger: I’m gonna break down the door like Fallujah, bitch!
The one person who doesn’t think THE LEGEND is awesome is MRS THE LEGEND, who just doesn’t understand. She’s holding the plastic baby and whining that she is “making memories all by [herself].”
Sabs: Don’t you know that he’s saving America? And freedom!
Merrick: He’s stopping them from busting down her door in San Diego. Is he gay?
Sabs: Well, there is the guy with the mustache and dreamy eyes.
Fistula: What a terribly written role.
Sabs: SINGLE TEAR.
Wow, the baby is even more obviously plastic in this scene.
She gets some profound dialogue like, “If you think the war isn’t changing you, you’re wrong. You can only circle the flames for so long. It’s true.” You can tell that it’s profound because he leaves the room without even a, “shucks ma’am.”
TOUR THREE THANK FUCK I thought my eyeballs were going to explode from boredom. Anyway, Biggles (remember him?) and THE LEGEND are driving around after a courier or something. Biggles, naturally, tells him that he’s awesome. But THE LEGEND has much more than his own awesomeness on his mind. He is giving Biggles shit for buying his fiancée a diamond ring from savages in Iraq.
This, by the way, is what we get instead of a scene where Biggles talks about his girl back home in Iowa. Given that he gets shot in the next scene, it technically fills the same function, and if this movie were in any way clever, I’d think it was even a subversion. As it is, it’s played totally straight and they have a discussion about the ethics of blood diamonds that concludes with THE LEGEND saying that Biggles is gay and going to marry a dude. Also Biggles references Keyser Soze and annoys me by reminding me that I could be watching The Usual Suspects instead of this.
Anyway, what’s the matter, THE LEGEND? Iraqis are good enough to shoot but not good enough to sell you discount diamonds?
Mrs. Mustafa: Why must you go and fight their wars? You’re not even Iraqi!
Mustafa: I must fight them here so that we don’t have to fight them back home. Do you want them raining down white phosphorous on Damascus, or kicking in doors in Aleppo?
Mrs. Mustafa: But what about us? We’re your family!
Mustafa: Do you want our son to be raped in Guantanamo Bay? These people are savages, habibi! They must be stopped.
Mrs. Mustafa (crying): Why does it have to be you who fights? Let someone else go.
Mustafa: God demands it of me.
(Note that this scene is subtitled. He says “Allah,” but the subtitles say “God.”)
Mrs. Mustafa: You owe it to your plastic baby to get back in one piece. You owe it to me! (sobs)
Just kidding none of these characters have any lines. I admit my dialogue is pretty clunky, but it would improved the movie 400%.
Ginger: Because you know when you’re a secret insurgent sniper, you put a picture of yourself shooting at the Olympics on your wall.
Mustafa knows parkour.
Sabs: Team Mustafa! Anyone else Team Mustafa?
Merrick: I’m Team Mustafa.
Ginger: Well we’re not Team Punisher.
Sabs: This film would be so much better if Tarantino did it. There’d be blood everywhere and he’d shoot Saddam in the face.
There is more discussion of engagement rings in this movie than in an average chick-flick. It’s mercifully interrupted by Biggles getting popped in the head.
Sabs: Is this the emotional part? Is Random Marine #56 gonna die? I’m in suspense!
Merrick: He’s choking on his own blood so he can’t be like, “…Tell my mom…”
Ginger: I thought he was going to take off and go chasing Mustafa. “You’re good bud! Gotta go!”
Sabs: Do they get to make calls like that?
Fistula: Their decision-making is consensus based.
Ginger: No one blocked it.
Sabs: I liked this movie better when it was called Call of Duty and you could actually play it as opposed to watch.
Merrick: Are you getting Call of Duty mixed up with Doom?
Mustache gets popped in the head. THE LEGEND shows an emotion, but just one, and it was too brief to screencap.
More American-flag-draped caskets get shown in this movie than were televised during the entire Bush Administration.
At Mustache’s funeral, Mustache’s mom is sad at the pointlessness of war. She reads a letter that he wrote expanding on his incoherent and vague anti-war sentiments. I suppose this is the bit at which some overly generous critics have called the movie subversive, but as we’ll see in a sec, it’s not remotely subversive.
Sabs: Yeah make sure it’s good and closed.
Ginger: The last thing the world needs is a SEAL to come back as a zombie. Pour concrete over that shit.
MRS THE LEGEND wants to know what THE LEGEND thinks of Mustache’s last letter. THE LEGEND thinks the letter killed Mustache. Mustache died of lack of patriotism.
Merrick: It’s unusual. Americans aren’t usually into victim-blaming.
Sabs: Well you know maybe if he had people telling him he was awesome all the time like THE LEGEND does, he wouldn’t have lost faith and died. Way to go, THE LEGEND.
THE LEGEND visits Biggles in hospital. Biggles is going to be blind. But the good news is that and finds out he bought a proper, non-savage-sourced diamond that’s just from Sierra Leone to propose to his girlfriend after all. And the even better news is that Biggles may be blind but he’s still able to tell THE LEGEND that he’s awesome.
After presumably unsatisfying sex with their clothes still on, MRS THE LEGEND accuses her husband of having a death wish. She demands that he tell her why he does it. He’s like “I do it to protect you.” She begs him to quit. Didn’t they have this conversation half an hour ago?
Merrick: Last time she had one single tear. I don’t think she has any now.
Just accept it, MRS THE LEGEND. He loves killing Iraqis more than he loves you.
She threatens to leave him so he hugs her into submission and the scene mercifully cuts to:
TOUR FOUR!
Exposition Guy tells THE LEGEND that Biggles died in surgery. At least that brave little trooper had one last chance to tell THE LEGEND that he is awesome.
THE LEGEND snipes some guy with an RPG and a kid runs over to see what the commotion is about. Naturally, our hero takes aim at the kid and while begging him to not pick the RPG up. But the kid can’t hear—because THE LEGEND is on a distant rooftop—so he picks up the RPG.
Fortunately, the kid spontaneously drops the RPG so our hero doesn’t need to have his conscience sullied with the blood of a third little kid. He cries. Kinda.
Merrick: Ah! So he’s got some humanity left.
Ginger: No, he’s becoming a pussy.
Merrick: THAT’S GONNA GET YOU KILLED!
At this point we realized that there was about half an hour of movie left so we took a booze break.
Fistula: In another 20 minutes, Taya’s gonna be, “why do you do what you do?” It does capture the brutal cyclical nature of war.
Sabs: I’m disappointed at the lack of pink mist. This is supposed to be a war movie. The main point of war movies is pink mist.
To be fair, I'm like this about every movie that's not by Tarantino.
Merrick: I wonder what Eastwood would do if you suggested that he make a film from the Iraqi POV and put some pink mist in it.
Sabs: He would print out the email, put it on a chair, and then shout at that chair.
Uh anyway back to the movie.
Today’s Meeting Agenda:
1. Shutting this shit down.
2. Gearing up.
3. Target secured. All clear.
4. Go! Go! Go!
For the final act of this infinitely long movie, it’s a SNIPE-OFF!
Merrick: This is like Enemy At the Gates but worse.
Ginger: ‘sup Moose!
Fistula: IT’S A TRAP!
THE LEGEND can somehow see Bad Guy Mustafa 2000 miles away. Random Grunt #93 tells him that it’s an impossible shot. None of his other friends believe him either.
Merrick: Use the Force!
THE LEGEND (mumbling): I will do it for Biggles.
Ginger: For bagels?
Fistula: Free dozen!
THE LEGEND shoots Bad Guy Mustafa in slow motion. Zack Snyder is the reason why we can't have nice things.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! But all the Al Qaedas are now after them! But it’s okay because Biggles would be proud, and the token black sidekick tells him that he’s awesome. Also Kyle’s nickname is now legend. Like, they just call him legend.
Merrick: This reminds me of a first draft of Blackhawk Down.
Sabs: Why are they still fighting? The war’s over when you off the main bad guy.
Random Grunt #105: GIT SOME MOTHERFUCKERS!
Sabs: Bets on whether the token black guy gets it?
Merrick: I’ll bet you a six pack of Innis & Gunn that he dies in the next two minutes.
Sabs: He is the only black guy in the movie.
Ginger: That’s diverse for a special forces unit.
Sabs, two minutes later: DAMMIT! Good thing Merrick doesn’t drink.
THE LEGEND calls his wife and tells her he’s ready to come home. In the middle of a firefight.
Ginger: You got dinner ready?
Then there’s a big dramatic sandstorm and you can’t see anything, so there’s no point in screencapping it. Picture this but way less cool and I guess without the sandworm, though you can't tell for sure from how it's shot.
Sabs: Whelp, the war’s over.
Ginger: Time for a beer.
Sabs: He’s gonna get spit on by a hippie.
Merrick: BABYKILLER!
Sabs: Oh he’s in a bar and he didn’t even call his wife to tell her he was back home. He needed a minute.
THE LEGEND: I needed a minute.
MRS THE LEGEND: The kids miss you. Come home.
Fistula: Oh baby scold me like you used to!
He’s watching TV and we hear war effects but the TV screen is blank.
Ginger: In his mind, though? Full Metal Jacket.
He got rid of the Beard of Sorrow. There’s a whole bit about PTSD and he freaks out over a dog that gets too aggressive with his kid and I guess this is the anti-war bit? It’s quite dull and, instead of sending the message that PTSD is a very serious deal that destroys lives, it sends the message that war is a gazillion times more awesome than being at home with your family and your TV that isn't even on.
He does not kill the dog, in case you were worried about that.
Because of the dog thing, THE LEGEND needs to go to a shrink who clearly doesn’t understand FREEDOM.
The shrink tells him he’s awesome. Or at least that he is the best at killing dudes. The shrink asks him if he regrets anything and he’s like NO REGRETS! FREEDOM! The only thing that haunts him is that he couldn’t save more guys. So much for the anti-war thing.
He is the actual least interesting protagonist in the history of ever.
The shrink takes him to see a bunch of injured vets. One guy who only has one functional hand left tells him that smoking saved his life. AMMURCA! FREEDOM! THE LEGEND teaches the injured vets to shoot and they tell him that he’s awesome for giving them their balls back. Whatta guy.
Then we get a bunch of family scenes that are even more boring than the shooting scenes. THE LEGEND picks up his old cowboy boots. Thrilling! He and his daughter look at a horse. Thrilling! MRS THE LEGEND brushes her teeth. Thrilling!
THE LEGEND takes THE LEGEND, JR., hunting. Actual quote:
“It’s a heck of a thing to stop a beatin’ heart. That’s why we’re gonna do it together. Be calm, confident.”
Fistula: And don’t be a pussy.
But we don’t get to see if THE LEGEND, JR., inherited dear ol’ dad’s hunting prowess, because the only thing that THE LEGEND is interested in aiming a gun at is his wife.
This scene is so creepy. He’s actually walking around with a loaded gun and his wife and kids around and pointing it at them. That’s like, rule #1 of gun safety. It's framed like he's about to kill her, but they're both joking around and happy.
But MRS THE LEGEND just tells him he’s awesome (of course) and it’s reaffirmed that he still only lasts two minutes in bed. Okay.
But he can’t have two-minute sex with her or play with his kids because he needs to go to the range with one of his PTSD charity cases. His kids beg him to stay! He’s still waving the gun around because guns don’t kill people, organ failure kills people.
He just leaves the gun on a random ledge, which is why he gets killed and rule #2 of gun safety. As you know, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
She watches as he drives off with his killer.
Merrick: Women’s intuition! Something’s wrong!
Sabs: We don’t even get to see him die?
His coffin is covered with little medals; I assume one medal for every dude he killed. When I die, I want one medal for every movie I snarked, and extra for this one because it was so long.
Merrick: I can see there’s not a wet eye in the house.
Fistula: That was austere.
Ginger: The moral of the story: you can kill as many people as you want. Just don’t try to help anyone. He became a pussy and he got killed.
Fistula: The downfall of America.
Sabs: The Hells Angels came out for the funeral! That was nice of them.
Merrick: Maybe after the credits, Red Skull shows up.
Fistula: Or Howard the Duck.
Howard the Duck does not show up, sadly. No, there is no point to this movie. There is nothing redeeming about this movie. Not even—despite what Seth Rogen had to say about it—Bradley Cooper’s acting.
One wonders, then, why anyone would watch this or think it was anything beyond a boring, badly-structured, overlong piece of dreck. After finishing, though, we had a conversation that led to a small moment of revelation for me. We were chatting about Tarkovsky and Von Trier and Glass (someone, possibly me, compared the repetitive nature of this movie to Glass’s recursions, if said recursions were shit) and I realized that I have willingly sat through a lot of Von Trier movies even though they are dull as fuck and full of rape, because there is a cultural meme that high art is supposed to be boring and I was trying to impress film geeks.
I think American Sniper is like that. I think it’s Von Trier for rednecks. They suffer through this movie because it makes them feel like they are better people for having suffered through it, when in fact it is just really long and boring and slightly rapey.
The film is exactly like watching a 14-year-old boy play Call of Duty when he won’t let you have a turn at it. It’s the epic love story of Clint Eastwood and the gritty, desaturated colour correction options available in Final Cut Pro. It is, quite bluntly, boring as fuck and ought not to have been made in the first place. This has nothing to do with propaganda or whether Chris Kyle lied in his autobiography and everything to do with the rules of storytelling that involve, among other things, narrative arc and character development and not boring your audience to the point where no amount of beer is going to make your film fun to watch. There’s so little to talk about that I don’t know how I managed to write such a long screenshot review. This movie has bad politics, but commits the far worse sin of having no plot whatsoever. The cinematography is amateur. Sienna Miller's acting is only a cut above the plastic baby's. And if you want to see Bradley Cooper play a gun-toting maniac, just watch Guardians of the Galaxy again; it’s far more nuanced, believable, and well-acted.
Hope you enjoyed this review in inverse proportion to how much I liked the movie!
Today's quote is:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-02-09 10:36 pm (UTC)Considering how stupid the rest of the movie is, that's remarkably sensible of them. Allah is the arabic for "God", but so many people with this kind of rah-rah-America mindset seem to think Allah is some drastically different deity for the one in the Jewish and Christian religions (or, y'know, another word for "Satan"). "God" is a very accurate translation of "Allah".
no subject
Date: 2015-02-09 10:51 pm (UTC)I would have put dialogue like that in, though, to remind viewers that Mustafa and Kyle are both fighting for the same deity. The movie itself is nowhere near that sensible.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-09 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-09 11:47 pm (UTC)1. They are exactly the same, right down to the fighting for a questionable cause in a foreign country thing.
2. America is better because Kyle's wife is given a name and dialogue.
3. Kyle loves his wife more than Mustafa loves his wife because they talk to each other.
Having some dialogue would have cleared that right up.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 12:10 am (UTC)One wonders, then, why anyone would watch this or think it was anything beyond a boring, badly-structured, overlong piece of dreck. After finishing, though, we had a conversation that led to a small moment of revelation for me. We were chatting about Tarkovsky and Von Trier and Glass (someone, possibly me, compared the repetitive nature of this movie to Glass’s recursions, if said recursions were shit) and I realized that I have willingly sat through a lot of Von Trier movies even though they are dull as fuck and full of rape, because there is a cultural meme that high art is supposed to be boring and I was trying to impress film geeks.
I think American Sniper is like that. I think it’s Von Trier for rednecks. They suffer through this movie because it makes them feel like they are better people for having suffered through it, when in fact it is just really long and boring and slightly rapey.
The film is exactly like watching a 14-year-old boy play Call of Duty when he won’t let you have a turn at it. It’s the epic love story of Clint Eastwood and the gritty, desaturated colour correction options available in Final Cut Pro. It is, quite bluntly, boring as fuck and ought not to have been made in the first place. This has nothing to do with propaganda or whether Chris Kyle lied in his autobiography and everything to do with the rules of storytelling that involve, among other things, narrative arc and character development and not boring your audience to the point where no amount of beer is going to make your film fun to watch. There’s so little to talk about that I don’t know how I managed to write such a long screenshot review. This movie has bad politics, but commits the far worst sin of having no plot whatsoever. The cinematography is amateur. Sienna Miller's acting is only a cut above the plastic baby's. And if you want to see Bradley Cooper play a gun-toting maniac, just watch Guardians of the Galaxy again; it’s far more nuanced, believable, and well-acted.
I think you just won the internet.
Von Trier for rednecks.
In four words.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 12:37 pm (UTC)1. I'm so glad you told me so I don't need to see it.
2. I didn't want to see it before, but now I do, dammit.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 09:53 am (UTC)This was excellent but especially this part and I'm SO GLAD you're my new friend!
no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 11:06 pm (UTC)I'm still not over seeing The Hangover. It is probably the worst movie I've ever seen. Other movies may have been objectively (or Objectivistly) worse, but The Hangover was the only one where I've vehemently disagreed with so many friends and critics.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 08:29 pm (UTC)I'm glad you focused on Trier and not Tarkovsky, because I feel the latter's slow pace is, in part, a brazen showman's trick to lull you into complacency for the SFX scenes. I don't want every movie to be Tarkovsky paced, but I do wish more appreciated the mundane which contrasts with the marvelous.
Have you seen The Thin Red Line? It's a bit sloppy, but there are some sections in which war being too brutish for character arcs is done with effectiveness. I'll admit I'm still a sucker for The Stunt Man (even if it is a bit more obvious by modern standards) because it openly addresses how one cannot do a war movie without glorifying war.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 09:25 pm (UTC)I think I saw The Thin Red Line at some point. I go back and forth on the "Truffault was right" thing; I think there are definitely some movies that show the horror of war and don't glorify it, but very few. Most of the ones I can think of don't focus on soldiers.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-13 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-13 08:59 pm (UTC)I think comedy and absurdism are generally better at tackling war than drama, if they do it well. I remember hating Paradise Now, which everyone loved, and comparing it unfavourably to Divine Intervention, which is a hilarious movie that involves little violence but nevertheless captures the grinding horror and humiliation of occupation in a way that the more serious movie fails to do.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-10 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-11 12:52 am (UTC)(I wish I had movie friends like yours.)
no subject
Date: 2015-02-11 01:39 am (UTC)Movie friends are the best friends. It helps that I sometimes meet people through bad movie snarkage.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-11 08:42 pm (UTC)At least Four Christmases ended. Gran Torino just goes on and on and on. Gran Torino was the reason I was absolutely not a smidge surprised when Clint Eastwood started yelling at an empty chair for an hour in front of a camera. That mostly made me go Ooooooh, that's why Gran Torino! He's nuts now! Explanation, yay!
no subject
Date: 2015-02-12 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-11 06:28 am (UTC)OH MY GOD THIISSSSSSSSSSSSS. I have had this argument with my father SO MANY TIMES -- he thinks a movie can't be Good Art unless it consists entirely of people standing around accusing each other of abuse or whatever, and he is constantly ragging on me for watching things that have action or jokes or, like, a plot, as if I, with my Ph.D., am somehow slumming it and betraying my intellect if I enjoy a fucking episode of Parks & Rec. Over the years I've become more and more impatient with the idea that good art has to be UPSETTING AND TEDIOUS, to the point where I've probably thrown out a lot of [plastic] babies with the bathwater since I just outright refuse to sit through movies "for my own good", ffs that is not why I watch movies. But that is not the same as saying that the stuff I like is meaningless fluff. I mean, even if it were that would be okay, but it is not, and I resent the idea that a comedy or action film or animated series can't have depth or meaning. There is this POSTURE that "serious" "art" is expected to adopt, and even if the movie is brilliant I am just so tired of being bored and upset by film.
(I've been thinking for a long time about a post/article about how enjoying grim/rapey/"serious" movies can only arise out of a certain kind of privilege, like my dad can be all "isn't that INTERESTING?!" and chin-strokingly discuss onscreen abuse with his film club or whatever, while I am having the shit triggered out of me (at worst) or am just being reminded of my day job working with actual literal RL refugees (at best). But I haven't really formulated an articulable argument about that in a way that satisfies me.)
Anyway sorry for the derail; I just loved this paragraph and I love the idea of reading American Sniper as "Lars von Trier for rednecks."
no subject
Date: 2015-02-11 12:49 pm (UTC)The problem is people often conflate "challenging" with "challenging to sit through."
But I am not a film critic; I just play one on the internet. Still. A book about a sniper has the potential to be much more engaging, because the drama is mostly internal; a movie is almost certainly going to be dull as shit unless the director has considered making it not dull as shit.
And haha, my mum seems to think I'm slumming it too, though at least she agrees with my taste in TV for the most part.
(I've been thinking for a long time about a post/article about how enjoying grim/rapey/"serious" movies can only arise out of a certain kind of privilege, like my dad can be all "isn't that INTERESTING?!" and chin-strokingly discuss onscreen abuse with his film club or whatever, while I am having the shit triggered out of me (at worst) or am just being reminded of my day job working with actual literal RL refugees (at best). But I haven't really formulated an articulable argument about that in a way that satisfies me.)
Ooooh! I'd never thought about it this way. I agree; I was certainly able to enjoy such things more (even Von Trier!) before I'd had real-life experience. Not that good art can't also be triggery (hello, watching Amour shortly after my step-dad died) but being triggery does not inherently make for greatness, and the conflation of the two is really fucked.