- Bradley Cooper good, American Sniper bad.
Bradley Cooper’s physical transformation into American Sniper‘s Chris Kyle—swollen up like a parade balloon with a bushy beard and a thick backcountry Texas accent—represents a new career best. More impressive, though, is his stillness. Whether at the center of a battlefield in Fallujah or quietly suffering through PTSD at a backyard barbecue, Cooper is practically a statue until he decides to put that monolithic body into motion, first as a Navy SEAL, and then as the sniper with the most confirmed kills in United States military history.
The rest of American Sniper doesn’t rise to Cooper’s exalted standard. Clint Eastwood’s celebrated get-the-shot-and-move-on directorial style has devolved from no-nonsense to simply undiscerning…