By Luis Rodriguez
Staff Writer
Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” is still making headlines nearly a month after theaters. Even though the film has found success in the box-office, the plot fell short of expectations.
Instead of getting the full story of Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in American history, the movie sticks with an on-going battle between him and an enemy sniper (Spoiler: Kyle wins). The fragments of history given in the movie are mostly irrelevant or misleading.
Bradley Cooper, who plays Chris Kyle, does an amazing job in the movie; however, it does not save the fact that the actual story is not a true depiction of America’s legendary sniper.
Eastwood fails to link events to one another, making the film a cluster of confusion. Kyle jumps from watching the attack on 9/11 to being in Iraq. The viewers are left having to put the pieces of the puzzle together themselves.
With the simplicity of Eastwood’s plot, the historical aspects of Kyle and the Iraq war is lost. Kyle is portrayed as a humble hero in the film, but in reality, his main objective was to kill as many enemies as possible.
Kyle even mentions in his best-selling book American Sniper that his only regret was that he did not kill more, of what he calls, savages.
The effects of the Iraq War are still being felt today, and this being the first movie with the Iraq War as the central theme, one would assume that the plot would be much bigger.
The movie almost acts as a means of censorship, removing the bad aspects of Kyle and glorifying this small story to give the public someone to worship.
Eastwood may have not expected people to criticize his film, but it did help with his movie and his wallet. The publicity of the movie led it to break several box-office records by grossing an estimated $105 million in its first weekend.
In “American Sniper,” the story of Kyle is a good one; however, a good story does not mean it is a true story.
