AMERICAN SNIPER (Produced and Directed by Clint Eastwood)
By Bill King

** 2 stars

The reviews of American Sniper consist of two camps 1-Pro War  2-Anti War
I feel neither  is correct I think it was a  simple tragic film. The Tragic Life of Chris Kyle a American Military Sniper. A early scene was Chris as a young boy was taken hunting by his father deer hunting and let Chris shoot and l kill a deer whereby  his father praised him for the killing Chris felt he did something cool and manly. Although it’s never said  in the scene  it does suggest this is where Chris first feels the thrill of killing a thrill not unlike every serial killer that ever lived has felt   We jump ahead a few years to where Chris is watching the CNN news coverage of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Which proms Chris to become all patriotic joining  the navy  and  not just the navy but the nave SEALS.  During four tours in the Iraq war  Kyle looses all humanity referring to the Iraqis as  “Those Savages”. shooting  and killing those savages Men, Woman, Children it mattered not to him it was just another day at the office.  During those four tours rotating from his home in Texas  back to the war it Iraq as if it was normal to do so.  What ruined  Chris Kyle’s  life was misguided loyalties that he put that God and Country nonsense ahead of his family His attention, loyalty and his entire being was his fellow soldiers and protecting those back home by doing this his wife and children became a afterthought just another piece of furniture in the room. He did not realize this until he was in a battle during that fourth deployment. All during the film a verse of RESCUE MISSION a Kris Kristofferson song written by Kristofferson, Roger McGuinn and Bob Nuwirth that goes “The hell with all your heroes and the wounds they hope to show I’m just a simple soldier with one more year to go” meaning do your duty then get the hell out and let someone else take over where you left off. The war scenes were  loud, bloody and violent but director Eastwood does approach  what the late director Sam Peckinpah  knows for his bloody battles would probable have done.  In the end  Poetic Justice was served as Chris Kyle’s life ended in the same way he lived it at the wrong end of a bullet.