Character story in a modern military setting

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2015)

This movie is essentially a character piece in a military setting, describing the life, motivations, and choices of Chris Kyle as he joins the military, serves with distinction as a Navy SEAL sniper, and deals with the mounting personal impact of repeated tours in Iraq.
Despite the subject matter, the movie has a relatively low-key feel, and presents setting and events in a very neutral way. The audience is invited to discover the significance of key points without exaggerated dramatic highlighting to draw their attention. In particular, the physical and psychological costs of military service to Chris Kyle, some of his compatriots, and his brother are made clear without melodrama or overt contrivances.
His meeting with his future wife, their marriage, and the increasingly stressful absences from his growing family during tours, punctuated by eventful calls home, provide the essential notes of what proves to be a love story, but the movie restricts itself to just the essential notes. And given his unexpected and untimely death in 2013 only a few years after his honorable discharge, it's hard not to look on it now as a tragic love story.
According to posts on boxofficemojo.com, the film has demonstrated broad appeal among both art house film fans and general audiences, and I've read a number of reviewers suggesting that the story's presentation lets it play well to people with very different social and political attitudes, because the audience is not explicitly led to a particular interpretation of the events described. Reviews here suggest that the lack of a carefully scripted subtext is also the source of resentment, at least for some, but again, the box office receipts would suggest this opinion isn't prevalent.
Intended as a dramatic depiction of a true story rather than merely being "inspired by" or "based on" real people and events (as with, for example, "The Imitation Game"), American Sniper is constrained as to the kind of plot it could have or events it could contain without violating the integrity of the film. The movie benefited from this by being less "Hollywood", at the price of having a plot which (in a sense) is less intense than something explicitly designed to trigger audience response. That said, I would rate it very highly among the war and military-related movies I've seen, with the understanding that it's a drama, not an action-adventure or suspense/thriller film.