‘American Sniper’ won a Golden Boy Award for Best Sound Editing at the 2015 Oscars. There were also a total of five other nominations – including for Best Picture and for Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born”, “Hangover”) as Best Actor. If you don’t know ‘American Sniper’ yet, today, November 10, 2023, at 8:15 PM you have the chance to watch the war film on RTL 2.
However, a very shortened version will (probably) be broadcast here, because “American Sniper” is approved by the FSK for children aged 16 and over and such titles are generally only allowed to be shown uncut from 10 p.m. In previous broadcasts, almost ten (!) minutes were missing.
Our tip is therefore: it is better to watch ‘American Sniper’ that same evening at 3:45 am in the repeat broadcast or with a fixed rate subscription to Netflix. Of course, you can also bring the film home on DVD, Blu-ray or paid video-on-demand.
Recommendation with caveats
Editor-in-chief Christoph Petersen gave us 3 out of a possible 5 stars in the FILMSTARTS review. This puts us slightly below the review average, especially in the US, where there was also a lot of euphoric praise. Metacritic has an average rating of 72 out of 100 points (based on 48 reviews) and Rotten Tomatoes rates 72 percent of 303 reviews as positive with an average rating of 6.9 out of 10. Transferred to the FILMSTARTS rating scale, it is rated Average 3.5 out of 5 stars in the international press.
Our biggest point of criticism: Even though director Clint Eastwood looks critically at the consequences of war and death in ‘American Sniper’, his tone is especially wrong with the main character played by Cooper, whom he transforms into a flawless hero in the final scene.
Still, we can recommend ‘American Sniper’, which is mainly due to Eastwood’s direction and Cooper’s performance in the leading role. Eastwood stages the duels between Kyle and his opponents as large, epic western shootouts. And Cooper fully immerses himself in his role, for which he has trained, eaten and meticulously prepared 20 kilos of muscle and fat.
What is ‘American Sniper’ about?
Chris Kyle (Cooper) grew up in Texas and enlisted in the military after the attacks on the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. After September 11, 2001, he was deployed to Iraq as a Navy SEAL sniper, where he scored more than 160 confirmed fatal hits.
He is celebrated for this by his comrades, but after returning home he finds it difficult to return to a normal life with his wife Taya Renae (Sienna Miller) and his newborn child…
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