Recouping ‘American Sniper’ glory

Bradley Cooper expresses surprise at critics’ contention that Iraq war biopic glorifies warfare

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Bradley Cooper, who earned a best actor Oscar nomination for his performance as a deadly marksman in Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, said  he did not foresee how the Iraq war biopic could become a charged political conversation.

“You never know when you make a movie if anybody’s going to see it, so to have the audacity to think that it would cause any sort of effect at all would be pretty presumptuous,” Cooper told reporters at the Academy Awards nominees luncheon.



American Sniper has topped the US box office and has, so far, grossed nearly $250 million. The film tells the real-life story of late United States Navy SEAL sharpshooter Chris Kyle, whose 160 kills in Iraq are considered the highest-ever in US military history. It has been nominated for six Oscars including ‘Best Picture’. The movie stars Cooper as Kyle, who was killed by a disgruntled US veteran on a Texas gun range on February 2, 2013.

It has become a flashpoint in US public debate with some liberals and conservatives sparring over the film’s portrayal of war and soldiers, and Eastwood’s interpretation of the history leading up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. Critics contend that the film glorifies war and sanitises Kyle, who called Muslims ‘savages’ in his memoir. Jury selection in Kyle’s murder trial is set to begin on Thursday.



The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has said that its members have been targets of “violent threats” caused by the film’s language directed at Muslims. Oscar-winning Eastwood, who is a staunch supporter of veterans, has said American Sniper has nothing to do with party politics.



Cooper, who is also a producer of the film, said he wants the spotlight to be on soldiers. “Any discussion that sheds light on the plight of the soldiers and the men and women in the armed services... for that discussion to occur, is fantastic,” he said. Cooper has previously been nominated for acting Oscars in 2013 for Silver Linings Playbook and 2014 for American Hustle.



The US state of Texas has declared February 2 as ‘Chris Kyle Day’, honouring the late Navy SEAL marksman portrayed in American Sniper, two years after his death. “Today, we commemorate [Kyle’s] passing, and we honour his service and the service of his comrades in arms who have joined him to defend our great nation,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said in his proclamation. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th,  2015.

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