Movie Review: American Sniper - Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015

Feeling almost normal today after three days of feeling terrible. Happy to be out and about again. I had a hair appointment at 1pm for haircut and color.

Bob met me around 2:50pm to see "American Sniper." The first theater we went to was not showing "American Sniper" even though it was listed on Fandango. The ticket-seller said it's playing at another of their theaters ten minutes down the road. Apparently, Fandango routinely gets the movies at the wrong location for this chain of theaters. We decided to go to a different theater a few minutes in the other direction. It started later, but that gave us time to have lunch at Jim's Restaurant (very similar to Shari's or IHOP). We arrived at the theater just in time for the previews.

American Sniper is based on the true story of Navy SEAL operations in Iraq. Bradley Cooper plays a SEAL sniper, famous for his number of kills. Much of the movie is spent watching Cooper in action as Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the decisions he must make while on duty, and the crazy war that is being waged.

In addition, the movie focuses on Chris meeting his soon-to-be wife, their wedding, their relationship and the toll taken on that relationship by his service to our country. Conveying the feelings of a military spouse is given a good amount of screen time, which helps break the war action a little. We learn the gender of his child, as he speaks to his wife, while he is on a tank mission that gets ambushed. You can really feel the anguish through Sienna Miller's performance.

The movie is intense, has the violence of war, and some harsh wartime judgments that must be made. Normally I do not like the violence in movies, but this movie satisfied my curiosity as to what being in a war must be like for the soldiers, what they must go through. From what I saw, it is not an easy task to the make the decisions and take the actions required of them in any given situation.

Hats off to our military, their wives and their families. Thank you for your service to our country.

I give "American Sniper" five stars.

After the movie, I had a Randolph Roadrunners Volksmarch Club meeting at 6:45pm. Bob and I had arrived at the movie separately in our own cars, so I went to the meeting and Bob headed home.

We had an excellent turn out at our meeting...about 30 people. The room we're meeting in is feeling too small!

That's it for Tuesday, Jan. 20.