FILM REVIEW OF ''AMERICAN SNIPER" (2014)

In his gritty, 132 minute, R-rated, combat biography “American Sniper” (**** OUT OF ****) producer & director Clint Eastwood treats the life of real-life protagonist Chris Kyle with unmistakable reverence.  This tragic but heroic account of the deadliest sharpshooter in U.S. military history is compelling as well as propelling from fade-in to fade-out.  Similarly, “A-Team” actor Bradley Cooper delivers a career best performance as the legendary Texas native who racked up 160 confirmed kills as a sniper during four tours of duty in Iraq.  Cooper packed on nearly 40 pounds so he could impersonate the beefy Kyle, and the actor assured “Men’s Health” magazine that the 6000 calories-per-day diet that he shoveled down constituted a challenge in itself.  According to “People” magazine, real-life Navy SEAL sniper Kevin Lacz, who fought alongside Kyle, taught Cooper how to handle the sophisticated sniper weaponry.  This sober but never simple-minded saga about the Iraqi war doesn’t so much ponder the polemical politics that prompted America’s participation in the fighting as much as its use as a historical setting.  Indeed, Kyle was gung-ho about serving his country after suicide bombers had blasted the Marine barracks to rubble in Beirut in 1983.  Meantime, people who have read Kyle’s 2012 memoir may complain about some of the liberties that Eastwood and “Paranoia” scenarist Jason Hall have taken in their adaptation of the New York Times bestseller.  Nevertheless, Eastwood has fashioned a realistic but patriotic film with a wrinkle or two that has mesmerized domestic audiences. For example, Kyle believed in what he was doing in Iraq while his younger brother abhorred not only the war but also the country. Eastwood celebrates the sacrifices that these citizens made without turning “American Sniper” into a rabble-rousing, Rambo fantasy.

“American Sniper” opens in Iraq with Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) sprawled belly down on a Fallujah roof-top checking potential threats to the Marines on the street below as they rattle one door after another in search of hostiles.  Initially, Kyle spots a military-age, Iraqi native on a balcony. Chatting on a cell phone, he is watching the troops approach him.  This suspicious fellow vanishes from Kyle’s sight.  Moments later, a mother dressed like an angel of death in black emerges onto the street with her son.  The mother hands her son a grenade, and they approach a tank with troops following it.  Just as Kyle is scrutinizing these two civilians through his sniper scope, his spotter warns him that he could land in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth for shooting friendly civilians.  This issue arises more than once in “American Sniper.”  Civilians in combat zones without a good reason created a quandary because our guys couldn’t be sure who was either sympathetic or unfriendly.  Anyway, as Kyle caresses the trigger of his sniper rifle, Eastwood flashbacks to Kyle’s life as a Texas teen shooting his first deer.  Eastwood and Hall furnish us with a montage of Kyle’s life along with his God-fearing father’s philosophy.  We see Kyle rush to the rescue of his younger brother Jeff on the playground at their elementary school as an obese bully beats up Jeff.  At the dinner table, Kyle’s stern father Wayne (Ben Reed of “Scanner Cop”) categorizes humans into three types: predatory wolves, sheep, and sheepdogs.  Brandishing his rolled up belt for emphasis, Wayne warns them that they will neither be predators nor sheep, but instead sheepdogs.  Wayne promises to punish them for anything less.  During his military service, Chris behaves like a sheepdog.  Repeatedly, he risks his life to save his fellow Marines.  Occasionally, “American Sniper” lightens up and lets you laugh with Chris about his romantic conquests both good and bad.

Aside from a protracted flashback sequence early into the action, “American Sniper” adheres to a conventional, straightforward storyline, chronicling the high points of Kyle’s experiences under fire.  Comparatively, director Peter Berg’s “Lone Survivor” (2013), starring Mark Wahlberg, could serve as a companion piece to “American Sniper.”  The big difference is Bradley Cooper’s SEAL team hero displays no compunctions about shooting kids, whereas Mark Wahlberg’s real-life SEAL team hero Marcus Luttrell couldn’t bring himself to kill an innocent goat herder’s son.  Meanwhile, “American Sniper” alternates between our hero’s harrowing battlefield exploits and his home front activities with his wife and family.  Eastwood doesn’t immortalize Chris Kyle as an invincible, larger-than-life, titan. Actually, we watch in horror as Kyle unravels with each tour until he can no longer tolerate the traumatic pressure of combat.  In this respect, “American Sniper” doesn’t pull any punches about the caliber of warfare that our guys had to contend with in Iraq.  Mind you, it isn’t gripping in the same slam-bang sense that “Black Hawk Down” was, but “American Sniper” still qualifies as a tour-de-force, first-rate, action yarn.  I don’t think Bradley Cooper will clinch the Best Actor Oscar, but you will know that Cooper takes his craft seriously.  Aside from Cooper, the only other three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood character is Kyle’s long-suffering wife, Taya (British actress Sienna Miller of “Foxcatcher”), who goes toe-to-toe with him.

Primarily, Eastwood filters everything through Kyle’s perspective, and you don’t witness any of those standard-issue scenes with natty politicians and high-ranking officers arguing about strategy at headquarters.  Eastwood rarely shifts the focus away from either Kyle with his family or Kyle with his buddies.  Of course, Kyle and his buddies form a tightly knit group from their rigorous beachfront SEAL team training to the devastating combat in Iraq. Predictably, warfare dwindles their numbers.  Particularly shattering is Kyle’s loss of his buddy Biggles (Jake McDorman of “Aquamarine”) who survives long enough to die in surgery. The camaraderie between Kyle and Biggles is sometimes hilarious as well as distressing.  Kyle’s younger brother Jeff (Keir O'Donnell of “Wedding Crashers”) drifts into and out of the action.  Jeff accompanies Kyle on the rodeo circuit in Texas and later follows him to the battlefield in Iraq.  Altogether, “American Sniper” ranks as a memorable military actioneer with some salty dialogue.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE A-TEAM'' (2010)

Anybody who enjoyed the landmark NBC-TV action series “The A-Team” will probably want to see new big-screen adaptation. “Smokin’ Aces” director Joe Carnahan and scenarists Skip Woods and Brian Bloom have adhered to both the spirit and formula of the George Peppard classic. Our original heroes were elusive, but wrongly-convicted government fugitives on the lam, one jump ahead of military authorities, and the film “The A-Team” sticks to that premise like glue. Although the series that co-starred Mr. T was set against Vietnam, Carnahan and his scribes have updated the storyline so the action occurs in Iraq. Since more than twenty years has elapsed since the series left the air, Twentieth Century Fox must have decided that the movie do double-duty as an origins outing rather than a sequel. After all, contemporary audiences probably weren’t watching television when the original series aired from 1983 to 1987. Liam Neeson of “Taken” quite capably takes over the role that George Peppard originated. Bradley Cooper of “The Hangover” steps easily into Dirk Benedict’s shoes as ‘Faceman.’ Newbie Sharlto Copley of “District 9” is every bit as loony tunes as Dwight Schultz was as the harebrained Murdock. Finally, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson plays ghetto-tough B.A. Baracus, the role that made Laurence Tureaud into an overnight sensation as Mr. T. Essentially, “The A-Team” (**** out of ****) qualifies as a prequel to the television series. The filmmakers show how the eponymous foursome met and wound up in the dire predicament that led to their weekly exploits.

“The A-Team” concerns honor, deception, betrayal, lies, and revenge. Colonel Hannibal Smith, a U.S. Army Ranger, is getting the pulp smashed out of him as the action unfolds in gritty Mexico. A corrupt Mexican policeman laughs at Hannibal because our hero handed over a bundle of greenbacks to a dirty cop. They cannot get Hannibal to cough up anything but blood, so they decide to ice him. They try to kill him with his own pistol, but Hannibal has removed the firing pin, and the corrupt cop doesn’t want his henchman to shoot him with his own gun because he fears that U.S. authorities will trace the killing back to them. They leave Hannibal with his impaired firearm and turn two vicious dogs loose on him. Before the dogs can reach him, Hannibal reassembles his weapon and his waiting for the mutts. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck is tied up and stuck in the middle of several tires while a higher corrupt cop, General Javier Tuco (Yul Vazquez of "American Gangster") wants to know who the pretty boy is working for. They plan to strung Peck up, and General Tuco is furious because Faceman had sex with his wife. B.A. Baracus is cruising through the countryside in his signature black mini-van when he happens upon an escaped Hannibal. They share U.S. Ranger tattoos and bond, after Hannibal pumps a slug into him. Just as the villains are about to hang Peck, Hannibal and B.A. arrive like the cavalry in the nick of time. Afterward, our heroes grip each other’s hands and set off to a hospital to pick up Murdock. The angry Tuco masses his forces and retaliates with greater firepower. Our protagonists spring Murdock from the hospital, and he flies them out in a Red Cross helicopter, only to discover that another chopper armed with missiles is pursuing them. Murdock performs some aerodynamically impossible stunts to elude the missiles. This entire, prolonged, bullet-riddled, action-packed sequence with the main credit titles popping up occasionally against the scenery and the gunfire resembles the pre-credit sequence from a James Bond escapade. Carnahan never lets the action stall for a moment and he adopts a storytelling strategy that keeps audiences up to snuff with the “A-Team’s” shenanigans. Basically, Carnahan lets the characters explain what they plan to do and shows them carrying out the plan as they explain it. The recent "Sherlock Holmes" movie did the same thing.

The story lunges ahead eight years into the future after our heroes have completed 80 missions. The setting is Iraq after the war has concluded. Hannibal and his men are considered the best special operations unit in the U.S. military. Hannibal has caught wind of a hush-hush, top-secret operation that he feels only his elite quartet can handle. It seems that terrorists in Baghdad have obtained stolen U.S. Mint printing plates and have run off over $1 billion worth of $100 bills. The bigger diplomatic picture prohibits Hannibal’s oldest friend, General Morrison (Gerald McRaney of CBS-TV’s “Simon & Simon”), from issuing Hannibal official orders to recover both the plates and the money. Instead, Morrison appears to have struck a deal with a ruthless band of mercenaries called Black Forest, led by Pike (Brian Bloom of “Terminal”), who have no qualms about murder as long as they are paid in full. Meantime, our heroes go in, snatch the plates and a trailer-load of counterfeit currency. All too suddenly, everything goes south for Hannibal and his team. An explosion obliterates the trailer, and Morrison dies in another explosion himself. Our heroes are arrested for disobeying orders. Everybody, including one of Peck’s ex-girlfriends, Captain Charisa Sosa (sexy Jessica Biel of “Stealth”), believes that Hannibal’s team and Pike’s gunmen collaborated on the mission. The Army court-martials the quartet and sends them off to serve stretches in different prisons. Hannibal refuses to accept this miscarriage of justice and finds himself an ally in Lynch (Patrick Wilson of "Watchmen") a mysterious C.I.A. agent. Although he is incarcerated in a top military lock-up, Hannibal has been cooking up a plan when he meets with Lynch. In no time at all, our heroes escape from prison and go after Pike.

Hollywood has struggled without success to resurrect other televisions series, but they have failed more often than not and failed miserably. “Starsky and Hutch,” “Wild Wild West,” “I Spy,” “The Avengers,” and “The Mod Squad” were catastrophes. Happily, “The A-Team” is a straightforward, larger-than-life, high-octane, action movie that never wears out its welcome. Moreover, “The A-Team” is better than its predecessor. Predictable for the most part, it is nevertheless an amusing as well as absorbing, with terrific performances, snappy dialogue, and a sense of audacity. The biggest differences between the PG-13 rated “A-Team” and the original series is that people die, and the big-screen adaptation adopts a grittier approach. Of course, “The A-Team” is just another big, noisy, slam-bang actioneers, but these Carnahan and company know how to slam and bang! They haven’t overlooked anything in terms of hardware so “The A-Team” looks as slick and sophisticated as a James Bond extravaganza. They have also jammed in enough intrigue for a Jason Bourne thriller. This explosive adventure opus has crowd pleaser branded on it with its international locations, high voltage action sequences, and murderous villains.

FILM REVIEW OF ''GREEN ZONE" (2010)

“Bourne Ultimatum” director Paul Greengrass thrusts audiences into the thick of the gunfire in his action-packed Matt Damon thriller “Green Zone” (*** out of ****), co-starring Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson and Jason Isaacs, about the Allied invasion of Iraq in 2003. Unfortunately, Greengrass’ high-octane, adrenaline-fueled combat actioneer clashes with Oscar-winning "L.A. Confidential" scenarist Brian Helgeland’s conspiracy theory narrative. This above-average, 115 minute, military melodrama about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will grip you with its verisimilitude. Greengrass choreographs the violence with such nerve-wracking ferocity that you feel as if you are scrambling with American soldiers as they blast their way into and out of tight spots with enemy gunners literally springing up out of nowhere to rattle off small arms. Anybody who has seen not only “The Bourne Supremacy” but also “The Bourne Ultimatum” knows Greengrass is the latest accomplished master of an old filmmaking technique known as cinema vérité. Cinema vérité occurs when filmmakers rely on hand-held cameras to capture actors and action as if it were really happening. Today we classify this form of filmmaking as ‘shaky cam.’ Greengrass helmed both “Bourne” thrillers and used cinema vérité to supercharge them. Despite its vigorous action set-pieces, “Green Zone” suffers marginally because Helgeland tampers with history and cooks up an expose that implicates a Washington, D.C., orchestrated conspiracy to go war against Iraq without sufficient cause.

Our protagonist, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon of “The Informant”), has been dispatched to Iraq to ferret out weapons of mass destruction following the 2003 invasion. People without a clue about Miller’s military rank should know that while he outranks top-senior enlisted soldiers, he is lower than commissioned officers. No matter where Miller and his team go, they always come up empty-handed. They shoot their way into three life-and-death predicaments, and each time they discover nothing. Miller’s frustration mounts and his questions make his superiors feel uneasy. He quizzes them about the so-called ‘reliable’ source that furnished them with the information. Later, disheveled CIA Baghdad Bureau Chief Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix") informs Miller that he will find no weapons of mass destruction at next scheduled WMD site on his list.

Meantime, a strictly peripheral character, Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), wants her confidential Washington, D.C., source to identify himself. As it turns out, Dayne’s source--code-named ‘Magellan--is none other than slippery Bush Administration official, Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear of “Stuck on You”), who knows far more than he is prepared to share. The villainous Poundstone keeps stringing along Dayne. Things change entirely for Miller when a friendly Iraqi (Khalid Abdalla of “The Kite Runner”), who Miller nicknames ‘Freddy,’ confronts him at a crowded intersection with a valuable tip. Freddy points them like a bird dog to a clandestine meeting of Saddam’s top lieutenants where he saw Iraqi General Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor of “Rendition”), who has been in hiding in Baghdad. Miller and his men storm the building, swap lead with the fleeing Iraqis, and our hero spots General Al-Rawi.

No sooner has Miller nabbed one of Al-Rawi’s subordinates, Seyyed Hamza (Said Faraj of “The Siege”), than Special Forces descends out of the blue in helicopters. Briggs (Jason Isaacs of “Daredevil” with a bandit mustache) takes Hamza into custody. He demands Miller cough up an address book that Miller confiscated with all the locations of Al-Rawi’s safe houses. Later, Miller slips the address book to Brown. Brown enlightens Miller about the amoral complications in the Iraq predicament. Stunned by these dire revelations, Miller tells Brown with a straight face, "I thought we were all on the same side." Brown straightens out Miller, "Don't be naive." In fact, while Miller concentrates on tracking down General Al-Rawi, Briggs and his men use all the resources at their disposal to shadow Miller without his knowledge. Basically, Americans are trying to outsmart other Americans in this melodrama of deceit. Indeed, Poundstone has important reasons for General Al-Rawi’s silence. Principally, Al-Rawi knows the truth about the WMDs. Poundstone wants Al-Rawi dead, and Briggs is committed to carrying out his boss’s orders.
The problem with “Green Zone” is British director Paul Greengrass and scenarist Brian Helgeland want the movie to double as a top-notch, white-knuckled, nail-biter but also as an indictment of the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq based on faulty information. In other words, the skillful filmmakers have intermingled truth with fiction or what is designated in intellectual circles as a roman à clef. Essentially, a roman à clef occurs when writers ridicule real people, such as either celebrities or political officials, without using their actual names. In this instance, New York Times reporter Judith Miller becomes Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne and Iraqi politician Achmed Chalabi have been given a fictional equivalent. Remember, Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction served as the key rationale for military intervention. Ostensibly, Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran's insightful 2006 non-fiction book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" inspired Greengrass and Helgeland. For example, in the middle of all this mayhem, Baghdad has a place, referred to as a “Green Zone,” for people to enjoy themselves as if war were not raging outside. Moreover, Chandrasekaran wrote that pork is commonly served in the Green Zone despite the fact that Muslims staff these areas. They used Chandrasekaran’s book to forge the appropriate background for their expose about the bureaucratic arrogance and stupidity that Americans exhibited in Iraq.

Production designer Dominic Watkins, art directors Mark Bartholomew, Mark Swain, and Frederic Evard, along visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang and special effects supervisor Chris Carreras should not be overlooked for their contribution to the film’s authenticity. These guys deserve recognition for recreating war-torn Baghdad with such meticulous detail. For the record, Universal Studios lensed “Green Zone” in Spain and Morocco, but you’d swear you were deep in the heart of hostile territory in this riveting, slam-bang shoot’em up.