The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, January 23, 2015 — 5

‘Sniper’ follows a 
typical formula

WARNER BROS

Sniper, no sniping.

By ANDREW MCCLURE

Daily Arts Writer

Oscar-nominated 

war drama 
disappoints

“American 
Sniper” 
nabbed 

a Best Picture nom this year 
alongside other 
unworthy picks 
(“The 
Theory 

of Everything” 
and “The Imi-
tation 
Game,” 

two films equal 
parts 
unreal-

ized and bravu-
ra-desperate), 
while bravura-
capturing “Fox-
catcher” 
got 

snubbed. Jason Hall’s script also 
received an unmerited nom for 
Best Adapted Screenplay, a deci-
sion by the Academy driven by 
the requisite of filling five spots, 
and nothing more, maybe less. 
Clint Eastwood’s (“Gran Torino”) 
wincingly problematic “American 
Sniper” is buoyed only by Brad-
ley Cooper’s nuanced portrayal 
of Chris Kyle, the “legendary” (a 
descriptor the script exhausts in 
fratircal fashion) Navy SEALs 
marksman on whose autobiogra-
phy the script is based. In its epi-
sodic skeleton we never dig deep, 
dark, enough into Kyle’s seen-
some-shit psyche and instead dig 
too long for meaning in Kyle’s life 
back home — except we’re dig-
ging using a twig, not a shovel.

Tired narrative tools thank-

fully don’t kick off until half-
way through the opening scene 
where we find a surgeon-steady 
Cooper 
(“American 
Hustle”), 

belly-down atop a sandy roof in 

Iraq. Both eyes open, unmoving, 
he spots a little boy through his 
crosshairs. The boy is carrying 
an anti-tank hand grenade (an 
“RKG”) and walking toward the 
Marines. Cooper, as is protocol, 
walkie-talkies to a nearby Broth-
er for confirmation to put him 
down. No confirmation. Then, in 
what ignites the next two hours 
of storytelling recyclables, the 
watchman Marine next to him 
redundantly says, “They fry you 
if you’re wrong.” Even if that line 
were included in the autobiogra-
phy, come on, man.

Then we cut back in time to the 

grueling SEALs training on the 
beach, sleeping little, swallowing 
saltwater, being miserable — you 
know the drill. Then, naturally, 
the romantic spark occurs in the 
laughable setting of a bar, where a 
gorgeous yet unconvincing Sienna 
Miller (“Foxcatcher”) plays who 
other than his future wife. It all 
feels lazily familiar.

The rest of the picture vacil-

lates without confidence between 
his sharpshooting genius in the 
Middle East and the worry-faced 
Miller who, despite attempts 
at momming up her look, still 
appears to be a supermodel. 
Without screening it again with 
a meticulous eye, I’d venture to 
guess that Eastwood and Hall 
held some calculated formula, 
like for every six kills that are 
supposed to elicit real emotion in 
us, let’s whip-pan back to Miller, 
who, invariably, between her 
husband’s four nine-month-long 
tours, is concerned for his chance 
to regain mental stability. In a 
few words, the film never fleshes 
out anything more meaningful 
than the fraternal bond amid his 
Brothers abroad via busting each 
other’s balls and saying shit like, 
“Get some, motherfuckers!”

Cooper, nonetheless, saved this 

film from lightless despair with 
his charming Texan-ness — the 
accent, the chivalry, the semi-
intellectual sense of humor, the 
sincere grin. We feel safe in his 
presence. Even more, we need to 
be with him because Miller serves 
nothing other than a channel for 
his loaded emotions, something 
Eastwood only paws at.

One of the better scenes comes 

when Kyle runs into his little 
brother, who had just finished 
his first deployment tour, clearly 
shaken up, disturbed, by what he 
witnessed. The almost-jingoistic 
Kyle 
evinces 
disappointment, 

anger even, when little bro, before 
hopping into an aircraft, mumbles 
loudly, “Fuck this place.” Kyle 
possesses a telegraphable mania 
for war because, well, in his eyes 
there’s nothing better than serv-
ing your country and saving lives. 
Nothing. He doesn’t get his broth-
er’s indifference. Cooper peppers 
beautifully raw moments like this 
throughout, but the too-lean, too-
convenient entree that populates 
the remaining film doesn’t cut it.

As I walked into the theater, a 

friendly yet anxious man stopped 
me, “Seeing ‘Sniper?’ Shit sucks.” 
He went on to say he had served 
duty, read the autobiography, 
hadn’t even seen the film, but 
complained that Kyle was lion-
ized onscreen when, in reality, he 
killed several innocent children, 
among his 160 confirmed kills 
(and 255 probably kills). I couldn’t 
ditch the thought as I watched; 
However, by the end, it didn’t 
matter. Within its own universe, 
the film fails to find a power, ener-
gy higher than careening through 
mini missions and watching Mill-
er try to sob. Cooper’s newfound 
gut carries more guts than the 
emaciated scriptwriting.

‘Blackhat’ flounders

FILM REVIEW

By NOAH COHEN

Daily Arts Writer

When a cyberterrorist wreaks 

havoc on a Chinese nuclear facil-
ity, the United States government 
pulls 
Nicho-

las 
Hathaway 

(Chris 
Hems-

worth, “Thor”) 
out of prison 
and offers him 
full pardon to 
help them take 
down the new 
threat. 
The 

casting of Hem-
sworth is against-type, which, 
though shallow (hack me, you 
gorgeous Viking god), is mildly 
inspired; it’s too bad he can’t 
play a believable cyber security 
expert. 

Hollywood is fascinated by the 

idea of the master hacker, but the 
actual world of “hacking” is not 
very dramatic. The rare moment 
of hacker inspiration is sand-
wiched by hundreds of hours of 
bland coding. “Blackhat” gets 
“hacking” right about as much as 
James Bond gets “spying” right: 
But, in “Blackhat” ’s defense, it 
tries very hard to be realistically 
boring, even cramming out-of-
place tech references into the 
dialogue and dramatically show-
casing an honest-to-goodness 
Unix terminal. 

The technical elements suf-

fer the contorting humiliation of 
dramatic exploitation, and the 
romance suffers the exact same 
way. Wei Teng (“Lust, Cau-
tion”) plays the romantic inter-
est/sidekick, Lien Chen, whose 
inevitable 
relationship 
with 

Hemsworth seems unnaturally 
accelerated, and whose rela-
tionship with her brother (Lee-
hom Wang, “Lust, Caution”) is 
a brittle plot device ripe for the 
cracking. 
The 
manufactured 

suspense makes the audience 
feel psychic in that we can pre-
dict what’s about to happen at 
any given time. The explosions 
will still jolt the excitable, but 
the familiar strain of conflict 
and resolution is relaxing in its 
certainty. A movie about detec-
tive work and hacking becomes 
a cruise-control thriller, and the 
ride is embarrassingly smooth.

Lacking the camp glamour of 

“Swordfish” or “Hackers,” and 
lacking, too, the snappy, end-
lessly justifying writing of “The 
Social Network,” there seems 
little reason for this movie to 
exist. It adds nothing novel to 
its genre. The director, Michael 
Mann (“The Last of the Mohi-
cans”), who has received praise 
for the technical bravado of this 
sad flick, couldn’t tell an algo-
rithm from a hole in the wall 
(as the opening CGI sequence 

illustrates, literally). “Blackhat” 
was written, directed and acted 
out by people who think of a 
zero-day “backdoor” exploit as 
a literal backdoor that someone 
forgot to lock.

Its failure to faithfully depict 

hacking is secondary to its failure 
to thrill, and in this capacity, the 
film has thoughtful direction over 
writing that inexorably shoots 
itself in the foot – the epic-scale 
dramatic event at the beginning, a 
nuclear plant implosion, leads into 
a secret plot threatening another 
epic-scale event, the flooding of a 
tin mine. The impending, threat-
ened catastrophe is far less com-
pelling than the catastrophe that 
has already happened. This is a 
violation of Cinema 101: the stakes 
should increase, and instead they 
drop off.

The end of the movie is vague 

enough to allow for a sequel, but 
there probably won’t be one. The 
inspiration here was as sparse as 
its box office coffers.

Insightful Minaj doc

By CHRISTIAN KENNEDY

Daily Arts Writer

In the four years between 

Nicki Minaj’s first and third 
studio albums, she has grown 
exponentially, 
both 
as 
an 

artist 
and 

person. Nicki 
Minaj’s 
“My 

Time AGAIN” 
showcases 
the 
artist 

in 
a 
deeply 

personal 
and 
often 

emotional 
light as she 
prepares 
to open the 
2014 
VMAs 

and release her third LP, The 
Pinkprint.

Right off the bat, viewers 

get a sense for Minaj’s sense 
of 
humor 
that’s 
present 

throughout 
the 
hour-long 

documentary. The show opens 
with a monologue cut short 
by a phone call, after which 
she is giddy, confirmed by 
some tongue rolling, animal 
sound only Minaj could pull 
off — the “Anaconda” music 
video is going to be released at 
midnight. 

Following a rant about her 

time as a Red Lobster waitress 
and an on-point impression 
of a customer’s “Where’s our 
bread?,” 
rehearsals 
for 
the 

VMAs are underway.

“Every performance should 

be better than the last,” Minaj 
says in the film.

Minaj’s 
work 
ethic 
and 

commitment to her work and 
fans is undeniable throughout 
the 
VMA 
segment, 
from 

rehearsal to post-performance. 
She knocks out the entire 
choreography the first day of 
rehearsal; she shows genuine 
compassion and concern for 

a dancer who gets bitten by a 
snake; she takes her wardrobe 
malfunction in stride during 
the performance. The show 
must go on.

The malfunction is not on the 

level of Janet Jackson’s during 
the Superbowl, but Minaj does 
have to spit her “Bang Bang” 
verse while holding the front 
of her dress together. The 
palpable awkwardness doesn’t 
stop people from speculating it 
was planned.

“I would never embarrass 

myself, holding my dress on 
the VMAs, for what?” she says 
in her dressing room, slighting 
distraught.

We 
agree, 
Nicki, 
and 

honestly it would’ve been one 
of the lamest publicity stunts 
of all time. The stylist said 
nobody is to blame (yeah, that 
is what all stylists say after a 
wardrobe malfunction, but we 
know better).

The VMA segment opens the 

program well, but it is simply 
the appetizer before delving 
deeper into Minaj’s personal 
life in her hometown and in 
the studio working on her most 
personal album yet.

The meat of the show comes 

when she takes time to visit 
with her family and friends 
in her hometown of Queens, 
NY. It begins with Minaj 
getting a manicure with an 
old friend, and the manicurist 
will not take her money — it’s 
as if they’ve known each other 
forever. It’s cute, very homey 

and something most people can 
relate to at some point: when 
a 
manicurist, 
hair 
dresser 

or friend simply and kindly 
decides “This one’s on me.” 

This 
scene 
is 
only 
the 

beginning 
of 
a 
sincerely 

relatable segment overflowing 
with Minaj’s friends and family 
and touching monologues from 
the hip-hop star. It’s clear that 
friends and family are number 
one in her playbook.

“The secret of life is to 

embody love,” Minaj said. 

It’s clear Minaj has so much 

love in her life, between her 
two best friends, who she refers 
to as sisters, and one of their 
grandmothers who had taken 
Minaj as her own. The highlight 
of the hour is when Minaj’s 
grandmother complains about 
her cursing (I’ve had the same 
conversation with my mother, 
father and grandfather … ).

The 
program 
closes 
out 

with an insider look at Minaj’s 
album. 
She 
discusses 
how 

personal it is; her abortion is 
the topic of the album’s opening 
track, “All Things Go.” This 
segment is put together in a way 
that even those who have not 
heard her most recent work can 
appreciate the emotion put into 
it and the art that came from 
it. The tracks play, with lyrics 
pasted across the screen, and is 
followed by commentary from 
Minaj, her crew of producers 
and friends.

“I write life; I didn’t set out to 

make a personal album,” Minaj 
states.

Within five minutes, Minaj is 

both teary-eyed and holding up 
a glazed donut saying “heaven” 
— and that right there sums 
up the hour long Nicki Minaj 
documentary. She is fun, but has 
a lot of emotional struggles. She 
values friendship and family 
over everything. If you didn’t 
like Minaj before, this may just 
change your mind.

TV REVIEW

B-

American 
Sniper

Warner Bros.

Rave and 

Quality 16

C-

Blackhat

Universal 
Pictures

Quality 16

A-

Nicki Minaj: 
My Time 
AGAIN

Documentary
MTV

Available for 

sreaming on 

mtv.com

FILM REVIEW

If you didn’t 

like Minaj, this 
might change 

your mind.

Hack me, you 

gorgeous Viking 

god.

