An Accurate Depiction

Rating: 8/10 (24 November 2018)

As a reader of the original autobiography, I was quite thrilled learning that a movie adaptation would be made. First off, the book is absolutely incredible. It gives an incredible good depiction of the reality of war and it's effects.
But I'm not here to talk about the book, I'm here to talk about the movie. Honestly the only thing I have to complain is the lack of running time. The whole plot was changed and was focused around an unclear antagonist of an enemy sniper called Mustafa when in the book Mustafa is no real threat. He's only mentioned one or twice in the book.
But that isn't the big deal. What makes the movie so great and so successful was it's accurate depiction of who Chris Kyle was. Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller both gives outstanding performances as Chris and Taya Kyle. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the caliber of their acting and just the sort of ethic realism they brought to the characters. Bradley's depiction of Kyle in this film is one of the best feats of acting I've ever seen. You can see the look in his eyes and you can see that that guy is the American Sniper.
Acting aside, the plot was somewhat of a slight mess. The movie was focused around non canon events but they made it work in the movie. The lack of runtime certainly took away the completion of Kyle's war story. But that's what the movie intends to deliver. The movie intends to deliver a depiction of who this man was. He didn't kill because he loved killing. He killed so that the savages wouldn't come back to the States and kill his people. He was protecting his buddies, he was protecting his comrades. That's who he was. To him, it didn't matter how many guys or savages he killed. What mattered to him was how many of his guys were killed. Those were the ones that stuck to him and the movie does an incredibly good job of depicting this. I have to say Clint Eastwood, well done on doing the book grace.
It's action sequences are gritty and realistic and it's depiction of Iraq is top notch and accurate. Honestly for people who haven't read the book, you have no idea just how more gruesome Iraq actually is then is depicted in the movie.