2014 was a good year for movies based on the lives of
soldiers in the US military with remarkable lives. Early on in the year, there was Lone Survivor starring Mark Wahlberg; a
film that tells the story of Marcus Luttrell, a soldier in Afghanistan whose
platoon was ambushed. This film tells
the story of Luttrell’s platoon and how he is the sole survivor from the attack. At the end of the year, there were two films
that I will focus on for this article, American
Sniper starring Bradley Cooper and directed by Clint Eastwood, and Unbroken starring Jack O’Connell and
directed by Angelina Jolie. Both films portray
soldier whom many people think of as heroes in their respective wars.
American Sniper
American Sniper is the story of Chris
Kyle, a Navy SEAL during the war in Iraq who served four tours there. He became known as “the legend” among the
Marines because of his record number of confirmed kills, over 160; making him
the most lethal sniper in US military history.
Bradley Cooper delivers perhaps the strongest and most natural performance
in his career. In fact, for much of the
film’s duration, I forgot that there was an actor portraying Chris Kyle.
Clint
Eastwood directs this film incredibly well, but portrays only one side of the
war in Iraq. The film argues a
compelling reason why the United States went to war and invaded Iraq in the
first place without showing too many of the details. The chronology of Kyle’s life in the military
is the most important aspect of the film as well as the one focused on
most.
While many of the shots Kyle takes
against insurgents are not shown, the ones that are shown can be rather
disturbing, especially because some of them are against women and
children. People might find the film
controversial because of Kyle’s portrayal.
Is he an American hero or a cold-hearted killer? Personally, I believe he is an American hero
who had a job full of really tough choices.
Yes he had to kill many people in order to execute his duties, but the
question to ask is how much safer did he make this country? How many terrorist attacks against American
lives did he prevent and how many of his fellow soldiers did he save because of
his actions?
Unbroken
Louis
Zamperini was an Olympic athlete before he went to the military during
WWII. The film shows little of his
upbringing in Torrance, California, but focuses mainly on his military life. He went from being an athlete, to a soldier,
to a survivor, to a prisoner of war. On
a mission, his plane crashes, killing much of the crew, but leaving him and two
other survivors. They are forced to stay
on a raft for forty-seven days, until the Japanese find them afloat and rescue
them. They are immediately taken back to
Japan where they are interned in a prisoner of war camp until the end of the
war. At this point in the film, the
focus becomes less on Zamperini and more about the POW camps he goes to.
My biggest
problem with the film is the lack of focus on Zamperini’s character. Around the time in which he goes to the POW
camp, the film begins to focus less on Zamperini and more on the camp as a
whole; the people imprisoned there as well as the people who run the camp. The story is a little unclear and bounces
around up until this point as well. It
fails to give much detail about his home life growing up. While some of it is shown, I would have liked
to see a more chronological organization of the story instead of
flashbacks.
Angelina
Jolie perhaps is not the best director for this film. Somebody like Steven Spielberg might have
made this a far more inspiring and far more powerful film; something almost on
the level of Saving Private Ryan. The film is put together in a way that
doesn’t make Louis Zamperini look like the hero he is in real life. It is not the best tribute to a true American
soldier.
Conclusion
Both of
these films are entertaining, especially American
Sniper. If you’re looking simply to
be entertained for a few hours, you can’t go wrong with it. Unbroken
is not nearly as good as it could have been. Both films show a certain aspect of war that
is particularly ugly, and that most of us will never have to experience.
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