I should have loved this

Rating: 5/10 (12 November 2017)

First, let me say that I'm not very much into politics, so my views about this film have nothing to do with political views, or even moral views or anything like that. Even though this is based on a true story, I watch films like this as if they're completely fictional. And I watch films from more of a "formalist" perspective.
I do like this genre. I'm writing having just seen this film for the first time in late 2017. Both "The Brave" and "S.E.A.L. Team" are about halfway through their first season, and so far I love both. I love video games like the Sniper Elite series. I've enjoyed playing the Call of Duty games.
And I did like this film. But in my opinion it has some serious problems too. I want to talk about what I believe the problems are. The problems are why I didn't love this film. I'm assuming you've already seen the film, or you at least know a lot of the plot basics.
In a nutshell, director Clint Eastwood tells this story in a very choppy, superficial way, with too many plot holes and too many befuddling character actions.
The timeline jumps around, with an early flashback that has to be gleaned simply contextually. All of the jumps have to be gleaned contextually throughout the film. That flashback works out fine, although when we jump forward in bits and pieces I had a bit of confusion re whether I was still watching the two brothers or different characters. I was confused why they were all of a sudden rodeo cowboys, because the film just jumps into that with absolutely no preparation or set-up. And all of a sudden Chris not only has a woman he's living with but he's already having problems with her, she's already fooling around on him, etc. That part is like we've jumped to at least the middle of something that should be a separate film, where unfortunately we've missed a bunch of important scenes.
A couple later jumps, halfway through the film, are even more confusing. Chris's military team apparently blow up a terrorist known as "the Butcher." Meanwhile Chris's wife--who by the way does a couple personality 180s that are never explained or justified--is pregnant with their first kid. Well, not too long after that, we jump at least four or five years into the future, because the kid is now four or five years old, but (a) Chris goes back to the Middle East as if it's the very next tour relative to the one where they blew up the Butcher and Chris's wife was pregnant (so what happened during that four or five- year span?), and (b) they talk about the Butcher as if he's alive. For a minute or two, I was assuming that the plot must have jumped back in time in the Middle East again. This is one of the problems with doing time jumps only contextually, so that they're unannounced.
The Butcher is never brought up again, so I guess that they did blow him up. A couple other plot holes are more problematic. Chris's brother, who seems increasingly weaselly and traumatized by being in the military in a war zone (we never see why), more or less just disappears from the film about halfway through. Chris's parents are never mentioned again after the early flashback scenes, either. I don't know why. There didn't seem to be any sort of problems in their relationship with Chris. More seriously, though, is the fact that one of the most interesting things about the true story this is based on is the fact that Kyle wound up killed by a fellow military member, only once Kyle was back in the States, back in civilian life, and where he was trying to help out the guy who killed him. We're given no details about this. We're not shown it. We're only briefly shown the guy when he shows up at Chris's house, they drive off, and that's it, the film is over. We learn that Chris was killed via a brief title card.
Maybe most problematic though are the characterizations. I mentioned Chris's wife's 180s earlier. Well, Chris is portrayed as quite enigmatic and as increasingly unlikable. There seems to be something seriously wrong with him mentally, and it only gets worse as the film goes on. You want to kick him at times when he's on the phone with his wife during battle rather than concentrating on the turmoil at hand. And then you want to kick him when he's back home and he seems increasingly catatonic, as if he couldn't care less about his family--at least not until he gets back to the Middle East, so that he can call them during the middle of a battle again. And then eventually, it seems that Chris's mental problems have more or less vanished with no explanation. It's another plot jump effectively.
Akin to Chris's distractions with phone calls, both the U.S. soldiers and the Middle Easterners are regularly shown behaving as if they don't quite grasp that someone could be shooting at them at any moment, from any possible angle/vantage point. They'll be la-di-da-ing around and then oops! I'm shot in the head, where that consequence is of no surprise to the viewer, if only the characters had a bit more awareness of the peril they're in.
Focusing only on the problems, it must be a wonder why I liked this film at all. There was enough that I liked, but I certainly didn't think it was perfect. Since comments seem to be either praise or political or moral complaints, I wanted to bring up some things that I feel are formal flaws with the film.