Harrowing emotional blockbuster

Rating: 10/10 (1 February 2015)

Clint Eastwood has long been one of my favorite directors. Although a fine actor in his own right, Eastwood six-decades in front of the camera seems to give him the ability to pull out the very best from his actors when he's behind the camera. Bradley Cooper gives a career-highlight performance as Chris Kyle, and this is an absolute must-see for any American.
Most negative reviews all seem to include a negative assessment of our nation's moral imperative to engage in the war on terror in Iraq, which has absolutely bearing with the artistic merits of this or any film. Since this approach has dominated the vast majority of the negative User Reviews, I feel compelled to offer a moral defense of this movie.
Many negative reviews object to the portrayal of jihadists as as "savages," but that argument serves as compelling evidence of how political correctness has corrupted public dialog. Any organization or nation who perpetrates war by hijacking planes and flying into skyscrapers in NYC is acting savagely. Any organization or nation who beheads journalists and civilians and posts a video on Youtube is acting savagely. Any organization or nation who uses women and children as human shields or human bombs is acting savagely. Detractors of this film suggest that Abu Deraa ("The Butcher") is a fictional contrivance invented to give this movie traction, but those same detractors are either ignorant or willfully ignorant of history.
*********SPOILER ALERT*************
Any organization or nation who uses power drills and (worse, if that's even possible) hand-held drills to torture and murder perceived political enemies is acting savagely. A harrowing scene featuring a power drill is the moral linchpin of this movie. In the months immediately following 9/11, we were united in our grief at the gruesomeness of the attacks in NYC, the Pentagon, and the passengers of United 92 who bravely died preventing more carnage.
In the 14 years since 9/11, the shock, grief, outrage, and horror we shared about the depravity of the attacks have been homogenized into a polite remembrance of 3,000 American dead. Certainly, 3,000 families will never recover, but our left-leaning culture is attempting to sanitize the events of that day by attempting to force the rest of us into a historical perspective by demanding we are tolerant of or at least empathetic towards their motivations. The drill scene serves a stark reminder that al Queda, ISIS, and other terrorists will use any means necessary to carry out jihad, and it gives Bradly Cooper a moral imperative to serve his country using his unique skill set. We are lucky as a nation that there are and have been sheepdogs like Chris Kyle to watch over us all, even those who use their First Amendment rights to criticize his heroism.