There is a quote from Sigmund Freud that has some bearing on this review. "Sometimes a Cigar is just a cigar." We put to much thought into something where it isn't needed. What is on the surface is all there really is. Such is the case with the Clint Eastwood film "American Sniper."
Released earlier this year, American Sniper is a war film that tells story of Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle during his tours of duty in Iraq, and his home life. Over the course of the film we watch his early life, the reasons why he joined the military, and the effects of his tours in Iraq on his home life. All three of Clint Eastwod's recent war films, "Flags of our Fathers", "Letters from Iwo Jima", and "American Sniper", are all in the same vain, how war effects the individual and their home life, as well as those around them. If that is the case then, how did "American Sniper" become one of the most controversial war films made in recent times?
The primary argument against the film is that it is anti-Muslim. To put it bluntly, it isn't anti-Muslim. Would the world prefer that we rewrite the story so that they were all Germans with swastikas attached to their uniforms? Would that make everyone happy? History is history, and should not be altered to fit someones ideals. The film is going to show him fighting Muslim terrorists, there is not much else he would be fighting in Iraq at that time. Plus, it's a war film, which generally aren't the friendliest films made. The point of the matter is that you can't change history based on a whim, or what you feel is politically correct.
Many like minded people have taken to boycotting, or even banning the film outright, many of them college students. They push the argument that is anti-Muslim, but this a surface look, and not the meat of the movie, what it is truly about. It's a biography of a man who did everything he could do to protect his fellow soldiers as the people who lived there, as well as the effect the war had on his physiology. Not to be insulting, but I would figure that college students would be open minded people with the ability and desire to look deeper into a film and discuss the finer points of the film and it's merits.
Overall, the movie is a fantastic war film and biopic. If you get a chance, you should watch it regardless of your faith or political leaning. Keep an open mind about the film, same for any movie. Like all well done historical films, it is telling a story based on fact without the intention of putting a political spin on it and to be as accurate to the source as possible. But it's also good to have heroes who faced a struggle to the best of their ability, and from what the movie shows us, he was a guardian to the men fighting in the streets and a guardian to them at home. Yes he said some disparaging remarks about Muslims, but do expect some who has seen what he has seen to constantly think that he might offend someone with his words? Men and women who have not see war, like the majority of us, what he saw, it is hard for us to comprehend. The issue is we put these people on pedestals, and when they don't turn on like the typical comic book superhero, we denigrate them and throw them to the dirt. So let's stop judging people based on their careers, and putting certain ones up on a high place. He is a hero, to those whose lives were spared and went back home to their families. As for the movie, a cigar is just a cigar.
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