one of the most polarising movies of the decade

Rating: 2/10 (22 January 2015)

Though technically well done, this film is one of the most shocking films of the decade. I say not because it isn't well enough made - as a mindless action movie it would be successful enough - but because of its message and the response to it.
Americans, by and large, are extolling its virtues, the portrayal of a good American, a patriot. Non-Americans can generally see the broader perspective, and are less positive.
It is very unfortunate that Americans who criticize the film are condemned as unpatriotic or radical lefties. The truth of the matter is that I, though a non-American, am socially and politically conservative, yet find the message of the film to be offensive. Good patriotic conservative Americans, as well as those of other persuasions, should also condemn the ideas that the film glorifies.
The key messages are that Iraqis are bad and Americans are good, and that it is fine to enjoy killing the baddies. Kyle was a proved fabricator - the law suits by Jesse Ventura are proof of that - but that is beside the point. Boasting of enjoying killing anyone, enemy or not, is a sign of a serious mental disturbance or illness, or at the very least, a sign of the societal sickness in the USA that applauds the "right" to bear arms, and to use them with wanton abandon. Killing is what war is about, but there have always been limits to such conduct, and the film shows precious little of that restraint.
Obviously this is a fictional film, and not necessarily accurate, even allowing for the inaccuracies in Kyle's largely factual book, upon which it is based. But if the common American attitude to Iraqis, Arabs, Muslims and anyone else they see as the enemy, is as shown in this piece of mindless, gung-ho, chauvinist propaganda, then God help us all. Such an attitude can only alienate those who should be the Americans friends and supporters and will ensure that political instability, terrorism and global chaos prevails for generations to come.