Few directors can say they’ve given as much to the world of movies as Clint Eastwood, who spent the better part of 60 years starring in and directing iconic Westerns. After his last movie, Juror #2, was released just a few years ago, it seems that Eastwood has officially retired and is ready to call it quits — this isn’t all that surprising considering he’s over 90 years old. Despite the mostly positive reception to Juror #2, Warner Bros. declined to give the movie a wide theatrical release, instead releasing the movie straight-to-streaming on HBO Max in America. It has continued to prove the studio wrong throughout the last year by being one of the most-watched movies on the platform. Eastwood is no stranger to his movies being massive hits on various streaming platforms, though.
Clint Eastwood has directed dozens of legendary movies over the years, but one that broke into the spotlight like few others was American Sniper. Released in 2014, the film tells the story of real American war hero, Chris Kyle, a Navy S.E.A.L. sniper with pinpoint accuracy who saved countless lives on the battlefield. Kyle was portrayed by Bradley Cooper in the film, and even to this day, it’s widely viewed as one of Cooper’s finest performances. American Sniper had safely secured a home streaming on Netflix for the last few months, but the streamer recently removed the movie from its library at the end of October. It had been a few weeks since it was last seen in the top 10, but it’s expected to find success on whichever platform it migrates to next, as Eastwood’s movies often do.
Four action series. One of them is built around exactly the way you handle pressure, people, and a room that has just gone very quiet. Here is where you would survive the trilogy, and probably headline it.
You are precision with a grudge. You don't posture, you don't escalate, and you don't warn anybody twice. That is exactly why the people who know you are so careful never to be the reason you start.
You understand the thing the whole franchise is secretly about: the cars are spectacular, but the crew is the point. You collect people, you keep them, and you'd drive through a building for any one of them.
You over-prepare and then take the dangerous part yourself anyway. It looks like control, but it's really responsibility. You have never worked out how to ask somebody else to carry the risk.
You are not the most trained person in the building, the best equipped, or the one anybody would have picked. You are simply the one still standing at the end, which turns out to be the only qualification that matters.
In addition to Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, American Sniper also stars Kyle Gallner as Goat-Winston, Ben Reed as Wayne Kyle, Sienna Miller as Taya, and even Yellowstone veteran Luke Grimes as Marc Lee. The film is based on Chris Kyle’s book he co-wrote with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice, but Jason Hall wrote the script for the film with Eastwood directing. The official synopsis for American Sniper, which earned scores of 71% from critics and 84% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, reads as follows:
“U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) takes his sole mission — protecting his comrades — to heart and becomes one of the most lethal snipers in American history. His pinpoint accuracy not only saves countless lives but also makes him a prime target of insurgents. Despite grave danger and his struggle to be a good husband and father to his family back in the States, Kyle serves four tours of duty in Iraq. However, when he finally returns home, he finds that he cannot leave the war behind.”
Check out American Sniper before it’s removed from Netflix, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of Clint Eastwood’s past projects.
