Bradley Cooper: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

2. Chris Kyle - American Sniper (2014)

Though the film occasionally swerves a little too close to drum-beating jingoism, American Sniper's central performance is a great one that deserved all of the attention it earned Cooper. His Chris Kyle is a layered contradiction - which is entirely the point: a blunt instrument and a tool of killing who bears the cost and the wounds of war-making both physically and mentally very obviously. It's actually the strength of his performance that lifts the film into award-worthy territory (though you can't say much negatively about Clint Eastwood's helming either). It's a profoundly sad performance in a devastatingly melancholic movie, beating a war drum just as surely as it criticises everything that results. and that's precisely why Cooper's rich contradiction works so well for it.