Navy S.E.A.L. sniper Chris Kyle's pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a legend. Back home to his wife and kids after four tours of duty, however, Chris finds that it is the war he can't leave behind.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writers: Jason Hall, Chris Kyle (book) | 2 more credits »
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Kyle Gallner | See full cast & crew »
Storyline
Chris Kyle was nothing more than a Texan man who dreamed of becoming a
cowboy, but in his thirties he found out that maybe his life needed
something different, something where he could express his real talent,
something that could help America in its fight against terrorism. So he
joined the SEALs in order to become a sniper. After marrying, Kyle and
the other members of the team are called for their first tour of Iraq.
Kyle's struggle isn't with his missions, but about his relationship with
the reality of the war and, once returned at home, how he manages to
handle it with his urban life, his wife and kids.
American Sniper Movie Reviews
This
film opens with two fatherly lessons being taught to a young Chris
Kyle: 1) How to kill a deer. 2) The world is made up of three kinds of
people; sheep (people who can't/wont' fight), wolves (evil people), and
shepherds (those who slay the evil people). then 9/11 - Kyle assumes the
mantle of the "shepherd" - and by default, if you are not him, or like
him, you are a wolf - then Iraq...
Kyle, Bible in hand, and tens
of thousands of other wrongly informed American soldiers like him, go to
Iraq to fight civilians in their living rooms and on their streets,
because they were told that Sadam Hussian helped Al Qaida and was going
to drop a bomb on us. None of which was true and the administration knew
it. Period. Even before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq their claims of
"yellowcake uranium from Niger" and "the smoking gun that could come in
the form of a mushroom cloud" were THOROUGHLY discredited. Yes,
discredited BEFORE the invasion. Google "Nigerian embassy
burglary/forged documents/Italian magazine/rocco martino".
The
lack of self examination in this film regarding the war in Iraq is as
disturbing as it is staggering. American citizens and soldiers were told
that the necessity for this war was "nuclear weapons". That was later
amended to WMD (chemical and biological weapons). All of which, the
truly evil dictator denied having. We invaded anyway. And after the
invasion none were found. The Bush administration conducted two
exhaustive investigations (with their own hand picked investigators)
into Iraq's WMD program and the results from the Kay/Duelfer report in
2004!!! were: "Saddam ended his nuclear program in 1991. ISG found no
evidence of concerted efforts to restart the program. Iraq destroyed its
chemical weapons stockpile in 1991, and only a small number of old,
abandoned chemical munitions were discovered by the ISG." "Some" found
those facts to be inconvenient, so the next reason for fighting Iraqis
changed to "deposing a brutal dictator," (We should know. We armed him
in the '80s) "shutting down his torture and rape rooms, and spreading
European style democracy across the Middle East." Meanwhile Saudi
Arabia, a dictatorial monarchy run by kings, was the breeding ground for
the 19 hijackers who pulled off the worst attack, on U.S. soil, in
history on 9/11. And American soldiers are sent to fight for a lie with
unexamined motives surrounding religion and patriotism.
Clint
Eastwood has made some bizarre public appearances in recent years. But
here, with this film, he seems well past his shelf life by papering over
every shred of truth surrounding the worst foreign policy disaster in
American history with his giant pant load, "American Sniper". Many brave
soldiers put their lives and limbs on the line and lost both. They
deserve better than to be hemmed into the Iraq War fable centered on a
dubious character like Chris Kyle. The sheep/wolves/shepherd, Bible,
9/11, fight 'em there, jingos all packed together create a disturbing
narrative that what the U.S. did in Iraq was a good and just thing, and
that Chris Kyle was an unproblematic protector. The truth is more
complicated and less flattering.
Here are three statements Kyle
made about the Iraqis: 1) "I wondered, how would I feel about killing
someone? Now I know. It's no big deal" 2) "Savage, despicable evil.
That's what we were fighting in Iraq. That's why a lot of people, myself
included, called the enemy 'savages'…. I only wish I had killed more."
3) "You do it until there's no one left to kill. That's what war is. I
loved what I did… I'm not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun."
Here
are three lies Chris Kyle told without shame or conscience: 1) That he
shot and killed two carjackers in Texas in 2009. 2) That he punched
Jesse Ventura in the face at a Navy Seals reunion. 3) That he was
stationed atop the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina and shot 30
American citizens to death.
Chris Kyle is not, in real life, a
one dimensional character/hero. He does, however think in one dimension.
We know that because he writes in his book, "It's black and white. I
don't see much gray." In fact this film, who's stated message is one of
shepherds, sheep, and wolves, unwittingly invites the question as to
whether we really know which is which. And if "American Sniper" becomes
an anthem to the Iraq war it will become one more tragedy, piled atop a
greater tragedy, piled atop 9/11. It is bad enough that it happened. It
would be even worse to carve this propaganda into stone. Chris Kyle is
entitled to his world view even if it's divorced from reality. His world
view, however, is not "the world". It's just the way he sees it.
It
is unnecessary to get into the merits of a film so completely devoid of
truth. The Iraq war was waged for the financial gain of the oil, gas,
and defense, industries. Iraq had no WMD, was not a threat to this
country, and did not become a democracy. This lie of a film was made for
the same bloody money that the war was waged for. In my IMDb review of
"Birth of a Nation" (an homage to the institution of slavery) I wrote,
and will repeat here, "it is beside the point whether or not this film
is good. It is an homage to something evil and therefore it's merits, as
a film, are irrelevant." Whether "American Sniper" is a good film (In
my opinion, plastic baby and all, it's no better than average) is beside
the point. It is based on an unexamined life and is as big a blight on
filmmaking as the invasion of Iraq was on humanity.