If the trailer is any indication, Clint Eastwood knocked it out of the park with his upcoming film “American Sniper,” which is about the story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, played by Bradley Cooper, who became the most deadly sniper in U.S. history while serving four tours of duty in Iraq. While the film details his mission abroad protecting his “brothers-in-arms,” it also shows him facing a different type of battle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Cooper told reporters at the film’s premiere that it was “just an honor” to play Kyle, who was killed last year, but acknowledged the pressure of the role. “It was the responsibility I had to his family to preserve his legacy that weighed on me,” he said.
But he didn’t disappoint.
"Initially I was so focused on Chris and making sure that it honored him, but I just lost myself. It was so Chris. It wasn't Bradley on the screen. It was Chris,” Taya Kyle told the Military Times.
She continued: "I left [the private screening] feeling like a weight had been lifted. They really pulled it off. It's an authentic, genuine look at two people who love each other and what our veterans go through and what they carry ... how they take their home life to the battlefield and take the battlefield home."
The film comes out Christmas Day in New York and Los Angeles, and will be released everywhere January 16, 2015.