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Apart from it being a good, solid movie, one of the things I appreciated about it was the way they had the allied troops working together against a common enemy without the usual "beat the audience over the head with American patriotism" evident in so many movies of the era.
Keeping with the "tank crew" theme, I watched Fury (2014) on Blu-Ray last night.
Fury
Is that a remake of the 1931 version with Preston Foster? If so, Mickey Rooney is a pretty gutsy casting choice.
Yup.
And?
Finally got around to seeing American Sniper yesterday. You know, for me, it really wasn't the "great American film" that everyone has hyped it to be. I honestly found it rather average. It just didn't engage me quite like Fury did. IDK, maybe I was expecting more, but it just didn't have the conflict I was expecting. The acting though was phenomenal. I could not have casted Chris Kyle better myself. You could really feel the internal struggle of Chris Kyle torn between his love of battle and his need to return to his family. Though it differs from the book in several ways, I think Eastwood was right to allow those changes. It makes for a better film that way. Another thing I picked up on, that I noticed in Gran Torino, is Eastwood doesn't really introduce characters well. He just sorta lets them appear. It'd be nicer if Eastwood could have established the characters a little better, letting us get to know them the same way Chris Kyle did. Half the time, I didn't know somebody's name until they were already dead. I know the film is supposed to be about Chris Kyle, but it'd be nicer if we'd gotten to know the side characters better.