A View of American Middle-Eastern Military Intervention at the Ground Level

Rating: 10/10 (24 February 2015)

Chris Kyle (played by Bradley Cooper in an Academy-Award nominated performance) was a trained military sniper, maybe the best who ever pulled the trigger from among hidden locales, usually the rooftops of buildings. According to the film, during military tours in Iraq in the early 2000's, Kyle had 160 kills to his name, mostly males, but sometimes females and even children. Was Kyle engaging in right and moral behavior whose efforts should be applauded because he protected his fellow soldiers and helped wrest Iraq from Saddam Hussein? Or was he a brutal mass murderer, whose exploits should have brought him before an international tribunal for crimes against humanity? However, I think the point of this film is to answer neither of those questions. This is simply Kyle's story.
The film focuses on Chris Kyle, an outstanding Navy Seal sniper who began as a would-be rodeo star who had experience hunting and shooting when he was young. In an interesting flashback scene, his dad claims there are three kinds of people in the world: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. The sheepdogs are the ones who protect the sheep from the wolves. The idea becomes a metaphor for who Kyle becomes and the role he will play in the US military. After having failed at being a rodeo star, Kyle signs up for military service in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. To the surprise of his superiors during basic training, he shows exceptional ability in shooting targets at long distance. He's the kind of material who could be a sniper for the Navy Seals.
The film chronicles four of Kyle's tours-of-duty in the Middle East. During each mission, his role as a sniper is primarily to assist his fellow ground soldiers, sometimes with them on the ground, while at other times in hidden places, usually atop small buildings. In one mission, they are assigned the impossible task of finding Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the primary heads of Al-Quaeda. In probably the most disturbing sequence, Kyle and his fellow soldiers sporting heavy-duty automatic firearms enter houses looking for Zarqawi. One older man with his family claims to have information, but for a price. Then a scene or two later, Al-Quaeda operatives, in particular one nicknamed "the Butcher", force the family to pay a deadly price for speaking with the enemy. Instead of receiving payment for their information, the family receives the ultimate punishment. And yet, the scenes play out such that they have no choice but to cooperate with the Americans and yet are pressuring Al-Quaeda to retaliate against them, at least from the terrorists' point of view.
Another fascinating element of the film is Kyle's "mirror", an individual on the other side who has a similar position and/or ability to Kyle. Kyle realizes a sniper is taking out American soldiers and other combatants at nearly the same success rate as himself. Essentially, Kyle has found his middle-eastern counterpart, a sniper with the same abilities as his own, except he speaks Arabic. Kyle and the American soldiers then realize they are engaged in a violent chess match in which Kyle and his counterpart-enemy are the most deadly pieces on the board.
One of the best and most poignant war films ever made, similar in style to "The Hurt Locker". The question which looms above the entire story is whether or not Kyle is doing the right thing. I think the film tries and succeeds to make the case that the issue is not whether Kyle was either moral or immoral. It's about the United States. Should the United States have engaged in an all-out assault on Iraq? In terms of military tactics, snipers are necessary to carry out missions. So the question is not whether or not Kyle should or should not have been sniping. The question is whether the "powers-that-be" in Washington D.C. should have deployed troops in the first place, which would necessitate the use of a cracker-jack sniper. It neither condemns nor applauds war. It simply shows what it's like from ground-zero.
As a footnote, the film ends with real footage from Kyle's funeral procession in which people waved American flags as they passed. (Kyle was killed by a fellow soldier suffering from PTSD after her retired from military service.) Does this mean the filmmakers viewed Kyle as a hero? Not necessarily. It simply showed Americans viewed him as a hero and he received accolades for his efforts. At the same time, Kyle did the duty he was trained for. We in America must debate and elect leaders who will make the right decisions in terms of military deployment. We must take responsibility for the fact that we need snipers when we put our soldiers into harm's way.