Very tough to review, I have very mixed feelings about this movie.

Rating: 7/10 (25 June 2015)

American Sniper was one of those films that carried a massive hype, everybody was talking about it upon its release and it seemed that everybody, other than myself had seen it. Because of this hype I was expecting an experience that was vastly above average, sadly I was a disappointed. American Sniper is a well-made movie and I did enjoy it but it was nowhere near as good as I was expecting/ hoping that it would be.
Since watching this movie I have seen many negative reviews online from people who were genuinely offended by this movie. They believed it to be an insult to American Citizens and a generalization of the Iraq population, portraying them (men women and children) to be all bad and evil. Having read reviews and re-thought on American Sniper, I can now appreciate these people opinions and sadly this movie has huge questionable issues.
American Sniper shows a blindly biased account of war from an American Citizen, with no real motive or intention apart from a flashback or him killing a deer as a child, getting cheated on by his girlfriend and most importantly; seeing 9/11 unfold on the TV. American Story is another Hollywood blockbuster which tries to convince the audience that glorifies war and gives another ignorant biased view of life on the frontline. War movies are always a touchy genre, they can often glamorise war and make it seem that everything is acceptable in the name of 'fighting for your country'.
The plot of American Sniper states that It follows the story of his struggle to deal with real life and how returning home from war is such a difficult task. We hardly see any of this though; we don't get much story of his time with his family. There is little, if any, character development, Chris Kyle is portrayed as a killing machine, no conscience murderer, then on the other hand they give a half-hearted attempt of showing him as a family man, riddled with guilt over the war. It all feels very confused and lacks identity. The biggest positive of this film is Bradley Cooper's performance. He has really developed a name for himself over recent years with some great performances and American Sniper is another great example of his acting ability. The supporting cast all do a respectable job and the direction of the movie is also satisfactory. The action War scenes are very well done and choreographed well, they don't contain endless shots of 'shaky cam' which makes for much easier viewing. When I initially watched this I didn't pick up on the negative points so much, I enjoyed the movie on first viewing, it wasn't as good as I thought it would be but it was still a good movie. However I now cannot help but realise the huge negatives that this film contains.
I knew nothing of Chris Kyle but having researched him after viewing this movie I can now agree with many of the negative reviews on here. He was portrayed as a war hero, his real life personality and actions are displayed as black and white in this movie which is simply not the case in real life.
Overall as a movie: It was a decent paced war film with solid acting but lacked any depth, identity and powerful scenes. Rating this movie on the movie alone I would give it a 7/10. However having researched the back story and real life events I find it hard to view this movie in a positive light and I can completely appreciate the bad reviews and controversy that surround American Sniper.