American Sniper review/addressing criticisms
I would love to address some of the complaints about American Sniper, since I just saw it last night. I wasn’t one of those people leaving the movie feeling an overwhelming sense of pride in America, but I did think it was a great movie and the fact that it has been eliciting so many different emotions is just a testament to that.
I’ll begin by addressing the “glorification of a man that killed 160 people”. I’d like to know where the “glorification” part comes from because I didn’t get that at all. I did however get that Chris Kyle wasn’t perfect and probably had more faults than the movie lead the viewer to believe. But, what movie doesn’t do that? In the end, Chris was still human, a man that wanted to do what he thought was right. Whether you agree with that or not is your own opinion and you have the right to that opinion.
Next, I want to quickly address the way Muslims were treated in the movie. At first a lot of the language used, like “savages” really bothered me, but it was there for good reason. Think about what Chris saw, even what he saw Radical Islamists doing to other Muslims. What he saw, he interpreted as pure evil. Do you think that he could’ve killed those people if he didn’t demonize them in his mind somehow? Of course I don’t agree with the demonization of Muslims, but it’s not an unreasonable part of the movie.
Lastly, I want to address my own opinion and its not really a complaint about the movie, just my own feelings. I think a lot of people left the movie feeling a great sense of patriotism, which I didn’t have a much. I mean, of course…for me at least, any time I see the American flag, I feel pride in my country and where I was born and raised, however, the concept of the movie didn’t spark that kind of patriotism. I’ve been contemplating war a lot recently and in the end, I just felt a completely and utter sense of sadness and depression. It makes me a little sad that people felt so much pride in the movie when I felt it was a great display of the horror of the world and I could go on and on about my feelings but I’ll just stop here for now…mostly because what I feel right now is hard to explain and, also it wasn’t the main point of this post. The main point was ultimately to say that just because American Sniper sparked different emotions for different people, doesn’t mean it was a horrible movie. In fact, it was an amazing and powerful movie and if people would open their minds a little bit, they could see that it deserves every praise it’s getting.
Thank you for reading my opinion:)
