"'American Sniper'... had the power to leave a packed Manhattan movie house silent—really, completely silent..."

"... as they stared at the closing credits and tried to absorb the meaning of what they’d seen. They filed out silently, too.... The movie seems to have pinged off something in the American psyche... [Navy SEAL Chris] Kyle, the movie makes clear, joined up to defend America after al Qaeda began making its moves. When he was a boy his father taught him not to be a sheep or a wolf but a sheepdog—a protector of others. The movie is a meditation on this. It is interesting that Americans want such a meditation. On the Iraq war it takes no stand. While the film glorifies war—all battlefield heroics, by being admirable, glorify war—there is a persistent antiwar presence, and not only because depicting the damage and dislocation done to those visited by war is an antiwar statement. Chris Kyle’s brother, on leaving Iraq after his own tour, makes a statement suggestion [sic] the U.S. is in the wrong place. A heartbroken mother at a stateside funeral seems to cry out for peace. Kyle’s close friend shares his doubts. Kyle doesn’t share them but he hears them, and Eastwood lets them echo out. This is a fair-minded movie. It is not anyone’s propaganda...."

Writes Peggy Noonan.

ADDED: How do you know that people staying to read the closing credits are "tr[ying] to absorb the meaning of what they’d seen." Maybe they're looking to see who played some bit part and what that song was and so forth. And don't people who are still sitting and watching remain silent? I think talking about a movie is something that you do as you're walking out of the theater. Did those Manhattanites, walking out, turn to each other with the usual "So what do you think?" or whatever it is people say nowadays to start the after-movie conversations?

And that's assuming the moviegoers were not alone. And if these moviegoers were really in a position to talk to someone else and delaying in some abnormal way, it might not be about the "meaning" of the movie as a "meditation" on the military, it could be the more mundane question whether this is a good movie. Did I like it as a movie? That's sometimes a puzzle. Sometimes you withhold judgment until you see the end and need more time to have an opinion worth stating.

When I read the first half of Noonan's piece, I thought: I should see this movie. But when I read the second half, I thought: I don't need to see this movie. It's not good enough. It's got formulaic scenes in boot camp and with a tedious wife character. I don't need to spend my time on moving pictures of something that's easily and more authentically accessible in book form.