“American Sniper” is the Worst Kind of Movie

Silence. That’s what fills the packed theater of people watching the ending of “American Sniper.” Photographs and archive footage from Chris Kyle’s funeral play on the screen showing hundreds of people lining the streets waving the American flag during his funeral procession then cutting to the over thousand attendees of his memorial service at Cowboys Stadium. The footage stops and the credits roll. Someone starts clapping and then the entire audience joins in, someone even yells.

Jesus, this is exactly what I expected to happen. My parents and I walk out of the theater and my dad asks if I liked the movie. “It was a factual mess.” Cue the long disagreement during the drive home, nearly every defense my parents have for the movie is something I’ve heard before. “It’s not going to be completely same as the book. That’s why it’s based on the book.” “It’s just a movie, it has to be entertaining for people.” “You’re over criticizing it.” “The movie painted him [Chris Kyle] as a good guy, trying to balance his family and deal with PTSD and it’s unfortunate that he survives the war only to get killed back home.”

That’s what bothers me the most about “American Sniper;” the movie portrays Chris Kyle as a sympathetic person who feels guilty for his actions when in reality, he didn’t care at all. In his memoir, he brags about all of his killings and describes it as “fun” and something that he “loved.” He writes, “I only wish I had killed more,” and “I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the Iraqis.” Oh yeah, and he made up a story about murdering a bunch of looters during Hurricane Katrina. 

I wonder why director Clint Eastwood decided not to include these crucial facts about this “American hero.” Is it because it would ruin his overly patriotic movie? “We can’t make a film about a racist asshole that fought during the war so lets completely disregard what he writes in his book and make him a likable guy” was clearly the thought process when this film was being made. That’s all I could think about while watching the movie—there’s a scene where Kyle (played by Bradley Cooper) kills an Iraqi mother and child because they were going to throw a grenade at his troops. Later on he’s visibly conflicted about what he did, saying that’s not how he expected his first kill to be. There’s another scene where an Iraqi child reaches for a weapon and Kyle is on the rooftop whispering to himself “Don’t pick it up” because he doesn’t want to kill the child.

Funny, when in the book he said he loved killing and that he didn’t care about Iraqis, who he frequently called "evil savages." But a character with a heart is going to win audiences over so once again, lets completely disregard how he really felt. And these lies definitely got to the people; after the movie ended there were groups of audience members talking about how bad they felt for Kyle, how horrible it must have been for him. Yeah, so horrible.

During that disagreement with my parents, I couldn’t help but to think that anyone who criticizes this movie is instantly going to be thought of as anti-American. My parents were quick to bring up all of the soldiers suffering from PTSD and my father told me about the injured soldiers he met who wanted to go back to war, much like Kyle did. I’m not dismissing the injured soldiers at all, but the movie is built around lies. This is the type of film that gets audiences riled up, chanting “America, hell yeah” while Kyle kills yet another “savage” then has you crying for him when photos from his funeral are shown at the end. “American Sniper” celebrates the life of a hate-filled killer who had no remorse. But audiences don’t know that because the movie never told them.

Saying “It’s just a movie” is downplaying that fact that it’s supposed to be based on someone’s life. Why make a biographical film when you remove key facts about the type of person he was? This could’ve easily been a fictional movie but no, Hollywood has to reel in audiences with that “Based on a true story” nonsense! Bradley Cooper, who also produced the film, said that he hoped audiences would view “American Sniper” as a “universal examination of warriors and their family lives.” Then why not make it a fictional film instead of manipulating audiences into believing Chris Kyle was someone he’s not? Why base the film on such a hateful person? Yes, the movie succeeded in making Kyle a sympathetic person haunted by his actions but that’s not who he was in real life.

His racism towards all Iraqi people didn’t even have to show in the movie for audiences to spew that same kind hatred after watching the movie. That’s another problem with the film—it’s jingoistic. American soldiers are put on a ridiculous pedestal while all Iraqis are portrayed as one-dimensional or just enemies, as if they’re not humans as well. And audiences are actually dumb enough to believe and generalize an entire country based on this distorted film.

Just search “American Sniper” on Twitter and you’ll be flooded with racist comments from people who’ve seen the movie: “American sniper makes me wanna go shoot some fuckin Arabs,” “American sniper made me appreciate soldiers 100x more and hate Muslims 1000000x more,” “Nice to see a movie where the Arabs are portrayed for who they really are – vermin scum intent on destroying us.” This isn’t patriotic; it’s racist and harmful. These people sound just as bad as Chris Kyle himself and majority of them aren’t even aware that he said the same things in his book.

“American Sniper” is the worst kind of movie; it celebrates a racist man and creates hate. If you dare criticize it, you’re anti-American or ungrateful for Kyle fighting for America as if it’s not possible to be skeptical of your own country without being called a traitor or knowledgeable about a man like Kyle instead of living in ignorance. Why are audiences so quick to defend and praise this film when the same can’t be said for “Unbroken,” another biographical war film based on a book that was released last year? In the movie, Louis Zamperini is a prisoner of war but later in life he’s able to forgive his captors. Is it because the theme of “Unbroken” is about forgiveness and redemption while “American Sniper” is simply about killing the “bad guys,” who happen to be all Iraqi people?

I refuse to stand behind this movie and its message. America is not a perfect country; Chris Kyle was not the perfect man. He didn’t save this country like audience members are deluded to believe, he was a sniper who killed a lot of people. He didn’t end the war but unfortunately that’s not going to stop people from putting him on a pedestal and hailing this hate-filled man as a hero.