It is not only in America that Clint Eastwood’s Iraq war blockbuster “American Sniper” is proving controversial. 
 
 After just a handful of sometimes rowdy screenings, the film has been pulled from Baghdad’s only movie theater amid complaints from the Iraqi government — as well as viewers — that it “insults” Iraqis. 
 
 Similar allegations have clouded the film’s release in the United States, though not its box office success. Critics have hailed its gripping portrayal of real-life Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and his exploits in Iraq as a cinematic triumph. Commentators have denounced it as being simplistic and giving a one-sided portrayal of the conflict. 
 
 In Iraq, the movie has come as a reminder of the vast gulf that divides Iraqi and U.S. perceptions of the bloody, complicated war, which left more than 4,000 Americans and well over 100,000 Iraqis dead — and is now drawing U.S. troops back. 
 
 “It glorifies Americans and makes Iraqis out to be nothing but terrorists,” said Ahmed Kamal, 27, a teacher, who downloaded the film for free on a pirate Web site because he didn’t want to pay to see a movie in which the hero refers to Iraqis as “savages.” 
 
 In “American Sniper,” Bradley Cooper plays U.S. Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. (Warner Bros. UK) 
 
 “I wasn’t prepared to spend money to see it,” he said. “It portrays Americans as strong and noble, and Iraqis as ignorant and violent.” 
 
 The movie also omitted to note that some Iraqis worked with the Americans, said Sarmad Moazzem, 32, who was one of them. He served alongside U.S. troops for five years in an Interior Ministry logistics division and now works as a security adviser at the theater that pulled the film. 
 
 “The film makes out that all Iraqis are terrorists — men, women and children,” he said, “whereas, actually, there are some people who loved the Americans and wanted them to stay to help rebuild our country. The movie didn’t show any of them.” 
 
 He listed numerous inaccuracies, such as the identification of Sadr City, the Baghdad neighborhood where Shiite militias battled U.S. troops on numerous occasions, as a stronghold of al-Qaeda — which is a Sunni group. 
 
 Moreover, a scene in which Iraqis, including a child, attempted to take out the sniper didn’t ring true, according to his experiences. 
 
 “No one would stick around if there was an American sniper in the area,” he said. “As soon as anyone knew there was a sniper, everyone would run and hide.” 
 
 That scene, in which a child picks up a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher, provoked a furious outburst at one of the screenings of the film. Three spectators sitting in the front row jumped up from their seats and started cursing, said Mohammed Laith, 27, who was sitting a few rows behind. 
 
 Clint Eastwood's new film "American Sniper" has become the latest battleground in the culture wars. Washington Post columnist Alyssa Rosenberg explains why its politics matter. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post) 
 
 “They were shouting, ‘It’s all a lie,’ and ‘You are demeaning our culture,’ ” he recalled. After the three refused to sit down, security guards ejected them from the theater, he said. 
 
 The manager of the theater, located in Baghdad’s fancy new Mansour Mall, said he withdrew “American Sniper” last week after receiving a telephone call from a senior official at the Ministry of Culture warning him that he would face fines and possible closure if he continued to show it. 
 
 “He told me the film insults Iraqis,” said Fares Hilal, whose six-screen cinema opened last year and is the first to offer Iraqis an American-style moviegoing experience, including tubs of popcorn and the latest releases. 
 
 He immediately complied with the order, but with some regret. 
 
 “If we show it, we will be criticized. But if we don’t, we lose money,” he sighed. “A lot of people wanted to see this film.” 
 
 Nonetheless, many Iraqis seem to have seen it, mostly on Internet downloads. 
 
 And not all found it objectionable. Yasser Bakr, 17, who operates one of the mall’s carousels, was still a child when the events portrayed took place and only dimly recalls them. He said there was nothing in the film that gave him offense. 
 
 “It’s just a movie,” he shrugged. “About something that happened in the past.” 
 
 Mustafa Salim contributed to this report. ||||| When Gaith Mohammed, a young man in his twenties with a degree in accounting, went to see "American Sniper" during its opening week at Baghdad’s Mansour Mall, he says the theater was full and rowdy. 
 
 “Some people watching were just concentrating, but others were screaming ‘F*ck, shoot him! He has an IED, don’t wait for permission!!’” Mohammed laughed, recounting the film’s many tense scenes when US Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, played by Bradley Cooper, radios in for authorization to take out a potential threat in his crosshairs. 
 
 The film, set during the US-led occupation of Iraq and released on Christmas Day, hit nerves in the United States immediately. Some critics and commentators lauded it as patriotic and unflinching; others dismissed it as reductionist and racist. 
 
 Many people also objected to the film's portrayal of Kyle — a man who described Iraqis as "savages" in his memoir — as a hero. 
 
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 Directed by Clint Eastwood, the movie is based on a book by the late Kyle, now known ubiquitously as the most lethal sniper in US military history. It has proven to be a blockbuster, breaking records and topping box office sales since its wide release on Jan. 16 and racking up Oscar nominations, including one for best picture. 
 
 It’s been stirring controversy in Iraq, too. 
 
 In Baghdad, where much of the film is set, the movie drew full crowds at one of the city’s new upscale cinemas. Dressed in a fur-collared coat and loafers, Mohammed says many of the showings were sold out, and he knows of people who had to book their tickets a day in advance during opening week. 
 
 But after just a week on screens, the Mansour Mall theater pulled the controversial war movie. A theater employee sitting at the box office says management made the decision “because the hero of this film boasts of killing more than 160 Muslims.” The employee declined to give his name because he did not have permission to speak to journalists. 
 
 Mansour Mall attracts a largely upscale crowd in Baghdad. Behind tall gates and multiple layers of security complete with metal detectors and X-ray belts, the theaters here show a mix of Western and Arab films. Moviegoers interviewed at the mall say big budget action movies are usually the most popular, but romantic comedies and family dramas also do well. 
 
 Mohammed says one of the film’s opening scenes, when Kyle spots a woman and child who appear to be preparing to attack US troops during the initial invasion of Iraq, had the entire audience on the edge of their seats. 
 
 “When the sniper was hesitating to shoot [the child holding the RPG] everyone was yelling ‘Just shoot him!’” he said. 
 
 It's the same scene featured in the official trailer for the film: 
 
 Mohammed, who lived through the events in Baghdad the film depicts, admits that scenes where women and children were killed were hard for him to watch. But all in all he liked the movie. 
 
 “I love watching war movies because especially now they give me the strength to face ISIS,” he said, using one of the acronyms for the Islamic State. When asked if he thought the movie was racist or anti-Arab — a charge made by some critics in the West — he replied, “No, why? The sniper was killing terrorists, the only thing that bothered me was when he said he didn’t know anything about the Quran!” 
 
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 But not all Iraqis were cheering on "Chief" Kyle’s kills. Wael, a government ministry employee in his thirties, says the film was too violent. He’s happy it’s no longer being shown in some Baghdad theaters. 
 
 “To some extent, I considered it against all Muslims,” he said. He also referred to the opening scene in Fallujah where a woman and child are killed. 
 
 “The sniper, he has a chance to hit the child and his mother in their foot or anywhere without killing them, but he didn’t because he’s bloodthirsty like all the American troops.” 
 
 Wael, who asked to only be referred to by his first name because he fears for his security, says he still watched the movie three times: twice at the cinema and again at his friend’s house. 
 
 Iraqi filmmaker Mohamed Al-Daradji says he sees the mixed feeling Iraqis have toward war movies in the reception of his own films, including “Son of Babylon,” which showed at Sundance in 2010 and told the story of a young boy and his grandmother searching for his father who never returned from the 1991 Gulf war. 
 
 Daradji says even his own family sometimes complains about the subject mater of the movies he makes. “They say, we’ve had enough of war and wartime, can you not make any love stories?” 
 
 But Daradji says audiences respond emotionally to war movies because conflict plays such a big part in day to day Iraqi life. In just the last week bombings in the Iraqi capital have killed more than 20 people, including at least 13 dead in a single day. 
 
 “When Iraqis see a film [about war] they’ll be engaged in it because they feel part of them is there.” 
 
 Daradji hasn’t seen "American Sniper" yet, but he says he isn’t surprised that the movie is being criticized for inaccurately depicting Iraq. 
 
 “There is no American films [about Iraq] — and I saw a lot of them — that have given justice to the Iraqi people and the events that happened in Iraq,” he said. “I sort of understand why not, because when an American filmmaker and an American company make a film they think about it from the American point of view, they don’t care about Iraq, they care about themselves.” 
 
 “That’s why we Iraqi filmmakers have to make films about Iraqi people,” he added. 
 
 The Iraqi film scene is small compared to its Middle Eastern neighbors, but it’s growing. Daradji and his brother run the Iraqi Independent Film Center, a production house aimed at training the next generation in Iraqi filmmaking and bringing filmmakers who fled under Saddam Hussein's rule back to Iraq. 
 
 At the Mansour Mall foodcourt outside the theater, Omar Jalal, a university student, says he’s upset "American Sniper" is no longer being shown. 
 
 Even though he saw it on the big screen already, Jalal says he was hoping to bring his family back to see the movie again. Instead, they’ll just watch it at home, he says, holding up a pirated DVD in a thin plastic sleeve that he bought from a shop a few doors down. Most of his other friends have already downloaded it illegally. 
 
 Jalal says the movie doesn’t strike him as racist or anti-Arab. He says he finds the main character appealing regardless of the fact that he’s an American soldier killing Iraqis during the US-led occupation of his home country. 
 
 “He was a hero and he went through difficult training,” Jalal explained, saying Chris Kyle was just serving his country, a universal duty for all men. “Besides,” he shrugged, “it’s just a movie, and I like war movies. If they are true or not, whatever!” 
 
 This story was reported by Susannah George in Beirut and a journalist in Baghdad. 
 
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– Baghdad's only cinema has stopped showing American Sniper. The movie was bringing in money, says the theater's owner—many screenings were in fact sold out, GlobalPost notes—but its portrayal of Iraqis was met with anger, including from the government, the Washington Post reports. "The film makes out that all Iraqis are terrorists—men, women, and children," says a security adviser at the theater who previously worked with US troops as an Iraqi government official. "Actually, there are some people who loved the Americans and wanted them to stay to help rebuild our country. The movie didn’t show any of them.” A top culture ministry official told the cinema to get rid of the movie or be fined and perhaps closed altogether. Another viewer, who watched a pirated version of the movie because he didn't want to contribute money toward it, had a similar reaction. "It portrays Americans as strong and noble, and Iraqis as ignorant and violent," he says. It was also factually wrong in several places, viewers tell the Washington Post. For instance, it suggests Sadr City was host to al-Qaeda, but al-Qaeda is a Sunni group. Sadr City actually saw fighting between Shiites and US troops. Other viewers, however, tell GlobalPost some enjoyed the movie. "When the sniper was hesitating to shoot (a child holding a weapon), everyone was yelling ‘Just shoot him!'" says one. Notes another: "I love watching war movies because especially now they give me the strength to face ISIS."