American Sniper
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: December 25, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
36
Mixed:
12
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJan 14, 2015
Eastwood doesn’t care about the legend. Instead, he shows us Kyle much as he saw his targets: with that strange combination of extreme intimacy and extreme remove that a long-range sight confers. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 24, 2014
Less a war movie than a western — the story of a lone gunslinger facing down his nemesis in a dusty, lawless place — it is blunt and effective, though also troubling. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 23, 2014
It’s a cracker­jack piece of filmmaking, a declaration that he’s (Eastwood) not yet ready to be classified as an Old Master, that he can out-Bigelow Kathryn Bigelow. Morally, though, he has regressed from the heights of Letters From Iwo Jima (2006). In more ways than one, the Iraq occupation is seen through the sight of a high-powered rifle. The movie is scandalously blinkered. Read full review
60
The GuardianXan BrooksNov 25, 2014
[Clint Eastwood's] gripping, incurious film gives the impression of having not so much been directed as dictated. It stares so fixedly down the rifle sight that it is finally guilty of tunnel vision. Read full review
60
TheWrapInkoo KangNov 12, 2014
Director Clint Eastwood‘s focus on Kyle is so tight that no other character, including wife Taya (Sienna Miller), comes through as a person, and the scope so narrow that the film engages only superficially with the many moral issues surrounding the Iraq War. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJan 16, 2015
If the star does his utmost to make a one-dimensional character interesting, his director, Clint Eastwood, adapts Kyle's memoir — a life story rife with moral complexity — by hammering it flat. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyDec 17, 2014
Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is a film that evokes complicated emotions. A month after seeing it, you might still be wrestling with whether it's powerful, profound, or propaganda. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 15, 2015
The film is rarely dull; it's one life-and-death sequence after another, and the filmmaking's efficient, crisply delivered. But Eastwood honors his subject without really getting under his skin. Read full review
50
The DissolveKeith PhippsDec 22, 2014
A lesser filmmaker, and a lesser actor, might have made American Sniper into an unthinking bit of jingoism. Eastwood and Cooper keep finding respectful complexities in Kyle’s story, until the film reveals itself as too simple to have much use for them. Read full review
50
HitfixDrew McWeenyNov 12, 2014
Overall, American Sniper is a solidly-staged but unexceptional picture, filled with overly familiar dramatic situations and a surprisingly blindered view of the world around its central character. Read full review
40
CineVueBen NicholsonJan 14, 2015
Despite a delicate handling of Kyle's internal struggles on home soil, deeper complexity appears to lie just out of frame throughout. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonDec 23, 2014
The humble Kyle onscreen is Kyle with his flaws written out. We're not watching a biopic. We're watching a drama about an idealized soldier, a patriot beyond reproach, which bolsters Kyle's legend while gutting the man. Read full review
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