Very American and like a skipping stone across Kyle's life

Rating: 6/10 (18 January 2015)

American Sniper follows the life of Chris Kyle, Americas most prolific sniper with 160 confirmed kills of men, woman and children. The film takes us from when he was a boy, learning from his dad, through his enrolment and training and his tours in Iraq up to his death.
It was interesting watching him having to make quick decisions early on in terms of taking the shot or not but it soon became repetitive when he embarked on the second tour, becoming even boring for anyone who knew that he died in a shooting accident back in America. The whole film just felt like it was glorifying American soldiers and like a tribute to Chris Kyle rather than telling a complete story. We never really got to know any of the other soldiers in his team making it hard to be bothered when some of them die. We never really see what happens to his brother, he sees him once and then he's gone. There's a big scene in which we see him learning life lessons from his father as a boy but his dad never comes back into it. Even with his wife it feels like every time he comes home it's just filler waiting for him to go back and there's no clear story or emotional build up there.
Overall I was disappointed with the way the film went. Maybe if it just focused more on one of the tours rather than spreading out and showing little bits of each it would have been more complete. Or if it had gone more into the PTSD aspect, instead it just showed he had a problem but then in the end he seemed to just get over it.