What do you think about "American Sniper"

RickBean

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Dec 4, 2014
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/american-sniper-beats-new-releases-passes-200-mill/

American Sniper” cost $60 million to produce and made an astounding $200 million, and dropped a slender 28% from its wide release opening last weekend. That’s an industry record for a film that debuted in wide release to more than $85 million, passing previous record-holders such as “Spider-Man” and “Shrek 2.”

What is your opinion about this movie?
I'm against all military actions and conflicts, especially against useless conflicts like Vietnam war!
And i can't understand, why film which promotes a so-called "cult of violence" now is very popular?
Maybe you can tell me?
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
dont we already have a thread for this very same topic?

In American Sniper, we have a character who is going to kill an enemy sniper, and then he does. The climax of the story is made obvious since the very beginning of the film, in plain speech no less. The "butcher of baghdad" story is just a framing device.
(...) the character doesn't change, doesn't grow, it's just one straight line from beginning to end.
Play Misty was not very different, but at least the characters depicted were unusual, and it had a story which you would not read about in mainstream, more so during the years when it was filmed.
So, to recap;
I thought American Sniper was extremely well made. The production is stellar, and this is where AS derives most of its entertainment value from.
The story is flat. The character's involvement is marginal.
The "at home" sections were not disturbingly soppy, but i felt they didn't add anything to the film.
The final "war changes you" bit was almost forced in, and thankfully not made into the main story, because god knows we've see that one a million times already.
So what you have is a really well done if somewhat simplistic war film, like dozens before it.
I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but for that mid-week entertainment, it's worth a decent
My vote: 6.5/10 - it's OK, but its not very exciting.
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
201
101
What is your opinion about this movie?

Haven't seen it yet, but definitely plan to.

I'm against all military actions and conflicts, especially against useless conflicts like Vietnam war!
What does this movie have to do with the Vietnam war? Also, if you're against "all military actions", you are an idiot. Sometimes military actions are necessary.

And i can't understand, why film which promotes a so-called "cult of violence" now is very popular?
Maybe you can tell me?
The so-called "culture of violence" is just politically correct crap. There's no such thing. Based on the reviews, it's a good movie. All this nonsense about culture of violence and other garbage is just that - useless garbage.
 

maddogchen

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2004
8,905
2
76
haven't seen the movie or read the book. But IT'S A MOVIE, GET OVER IT!!!


The book is supposed to be really popular and I was thinking of reading it because i've read a few sniper books. But people who compare it to really good sniper books say that the book isn't as good from that standpoint.
 

spacejamz

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
10,781
1,386
126
And i can't understand, why film which promotes a so-called "cult of violence" now is very popular?
Maybe you can tell me?

if a series of books where kids are placed into a game where they kill each other can be that successful, why is this such a surprise???
 

shira

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
9,567
6
81
The actual Chris Kyle was a complex person, and the film really doesn't get into that complexity. But it's Hollywood entertainment, so it's all good.
 

rudder

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
19,441
85
91
Liberals like that fat ass micheal moore have their panties in a wad.... so based on that, the movie is an astounding success.
 

rudder

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
19,441
85
91
And i can't understand, why film which promotes a so-called "cult of violence" now is very popular?
Maybe you can tell me?

Did you even see the movie? If you did and all you got out of the story is oooh oooh war porn, then you missed a lot.
 

piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
17,168
60
91
It is a movie who cares?

How is it any different from "The Avengers", "Captain America", or any other show with gratuitous violence like say "Lord of the Rings?"
 
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bshole

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2013
8,309
1,209
126
The actual Chris Kyle was a complex person, and the film really doesn't get into that complexity. But it's Hollywood entertainment, so it's all good.

Does it explore WHY he printed the lies about Jesse Ventura? Does it examine why he thought it was a great idea to give guns to people with mental illness? Does it delve into his pathological hatred of Islam or his weird belief that he was on a Christian crusade? From everything I have read, Chris was a remarkably SIMPLE man, in EVERY sense of the word.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
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Does it explore WHY he printed the lies about Jesse Ventura? Does it examine why he thought it was a great idea to give guns to people with mental illness? Does it delve into his pathological hatred of Islam or his weird belief that he was on a Christian crusade? From everything I have read, Chris was a remarkably SIMPLE man, in EVERY sense of the word.

Do you know, for a fact, the didn't punch Jesse Ventura? Because, nobody knows for real. In fact, whether he did or did not punch Ventura wasn't considered by the jury, simply if him printing statements about doing it caused harm, and it wasn't even unanimous among the jury.
 

Uppsala9496

Diamond Member
Nov 2, 2001
5,272
19
81
Does it explore WHY he printed the lies about Jesse Ventura? Does it examine why he thought it was a great idea to give guns to people with mental illness? Does it delve into his pathological hatred of Islam or his weird belief that he was on a Christian crusade? From everything I have read, Chris was a remarkably SIMPLE man, in EVERY sense of the word.

So everyone that has/had PTSD has a mental illness that should preclude them from handling a firearm?
From what I have been told, it can be therapeutic for some with PTSD to shoot again. For others, they want nothing to do with it.

Rather broad generalizations you've thrown out there.

And no, I haven't seen the movie - did read the book.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
32,201
14,876
136
It is a movie who cares?

How is it any different from "The Avengers", "Captain America", or any other show with gratuitous violence like say "Lord of the Rings?"

I haven't seen this movie but the two you mentioned sucked. This movie like the two you mentioned strike me as a low brow action movie, meaning if you go into it thinking this movie will be fun and don't ask any questions and just enjoy the loud noises and colorful pictures, it will be a good movie. I have to be in the mood to see those kinds of movies.
 

bshole

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2013
8,309
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Do you know, for a fact, the didn't punch Jesse Ventura? Because, nobody knows for real. In fact, whether he did or did not punch Ventura wasn't considered by the jury, simply if him printing statements about doing it caused harm, and it wasn't even unanimous among the jury.

Well he also claimed he murdered 30 looters from a perch atop the Super Dome. Are you going to argue that Kyle was being honest and is actually one of the biggest mass-murderers in American history?

Kyle was a pathological liar who lied for attention and money. Nothing complex about that at all. Not even complex enough to come up with lies that weren't EASILY disprovable.

Yes I know beyond a reasonable doubt that he never met Jesse, much less punched him.

Legal experts said Ventura, a former Navy SEAL, had to clear a high legal bar to win, since as a public figure he had to prove actual malice. According to the jury instructions, Ventura had to prove with "clear and convincing evidence" that Kyle either knew or believed what he wrote was untrue, or that he harbored serious doubts about its truth.

[Ventura attorney David Bradley] Olsen said Kyle's claims that Ventura said he hated America, thought the U.S. military was killing innocent civilians in Iraq and that the SEALs "deserve to lose a few" had made him a pariah in the community that mattered most to him — the brotherhood of current and former SEALs.

Olsen said inconsistencies in testimony from defense witnesses about what happened the night of Oct. 12, 2006, were so serious that their stories couldn't be trusted. He also pointed out that people who were with Ventura that night testified that the alleged confrontation never happened. And he said Ventura would never have said any of the remarks attributed to him because he remains proud of his and his parents' military service.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/kyleclaims.asp#TfXPxcKMwrlh2Bo3.99
 
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smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
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I haven't seen this movie but the two you mentioned sucked. This movie like the two you mentioned strike me as a low brow action movie, meaning if you go into it thinking this movie will be fun and don't ask any questions and just enjoy the loud noises and colorful pictures, it will be a good movie. I have to be in the mood to see those kinds of movies.

It is certainly not that kind of movie. This is more of a character piece. There is action, and it is Hollywoodized to a point, but it certainly isn't some kind of just along for the 'splosions ride.

It just tells the story of an asshole with a savior complex and how his situation changed him. He happened to be in the right combination of being a good soldier and in the right area to be effective at his job to become a legend, but it really fucked him up. Even after the war, it was continuing to be a savior that helped him overcome his PTSD. And, that helps explain some of the questionable (at best) stories told about him; he still needed the validation, internal or external, of being a savior of something, even if it was abandoned businesses in New Orleans.

The movie itself was well done and did little to glorify war or even attempt to idolize Chris Kyle. It does a good job showing how brutal it was for some guys and how bad it fucks them up.
 

bshole

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2013
8,309
1,209
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It is certainly not that kind of movie. This is more of a character piece. There is action, and it is Hollywoodized to a point, but it certainly isn't some kind of just along for the 'splosions ride.
:
The movie itself was well done and did little to glorify war or even attempt to idolize Chris Kyle. It does a good job showing how brutal it was for some guys and how bad it fucks them up.

Does it recreate the part where he went around telling EVERYBODY who would listen that he committed mass murder in New Orleans? He had all his friends convinced that he had done that. This occurred AFTER his PTSD was "cured". Got that? He was passing off certifiably sociopathic fantasy snuff stories as gospel to his friends even after his supposed redemption.

If the movie was honest, it would depict his BIGOTRY, his religious fanaticism, his deception and his mass murder fantasies..... those are the topics that need exploration
 
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smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
86
Does it recreate the part where he went around telling EVERYBODY who would listen that he committed mass murder in New Orleans? He had all his friends convinced that he had done that. This occurred AFTER his PTSD was "cured". Got that? He was passing off certifiably sociopathic fantasy snuff stories as gospel to his friends even after his supposed redemption.

If the movie was honest, it would depict his BIGOTRY, his religious fanaticism, his deception and his mass murder fantasies..... those are the topics that need exploration

Can you please point to any evidence even suggestion Chris Kyle said the NO story himself? Or anything about his bigotry and religious fanaticism? So, please, do put forth said evidence.
 

bshole

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2013
8,309
1,209
126
Can you please point to any evidence even suggestion Chris Kyle said the NO story himself? Or anything about his bigotry and religious fanaticism? So, please, do put forth said evidence.

See post #15 above, it has the link right in it!
 

dainthomas

Lifer
Dec 7, 2004
14,572
3,401
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If the movie was honest, it would depict his BIGOTRY, his religious fanaticism, his deception and his mass murder fantasies..... those are the topics that need exploration

It's easy for you to judge, but if you spent years watching people of a certain group kill your friends you might have strong feelings about them. I think many people would.
 

shira

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
9,567
6
81
Well he also claimed he murdered 30 looters from a perch atop the Super Dome. Are you going to argue that Kyle was being honest and is actually one of the biggest mass-murderers in American history?

Kyle was a pathological liar who lied for attention and money. Nothing complex about that at all. Not even complex enough to come up with lies that weren't EASILY disprovable.

Yes I know beyond a reasonable doubt that he never met Jesse, much less punched him.

He also claimed to have shot and killed two would-be robbers in a gas station . And he provided sufficient detail of where and when, that a reporter was able to check every gas station and every police station in the area for the stated time period, and there was no record of any such killing.

First, the claim:

It goes something like this: when he was first back from Iraq, in 2009, Chris Kyle killed two armed men who were attempting to carjack him at a gas station.

I first heard this story more than a year ago. It hasn’t made the news much. There was a brief mention in Marcus Luttrell’s second book. And now the Star-Telegram has a blog item mentioning the story and how difficult it is to confirm. Well, as it turns out, I’ve been working on a story about Chris Kyle for about nine months. We talked regularly, mostly about the challenges and triumphs of his transition home. I first asked him about the story last summer, during an interview in his Dallas office. I said: “Now, I have to ask you about an incident that I’ve heard about. I heard it happened at a gas station.”

He said: “You mean the time I shot two guys trying to steal my truck?”

I sat there stunned for a few seconds. The incredible story I’d heard, I figured there was no way it was true.

“It’s true,” he said.

He proceeded to tell me about that day. It was in January 2009, just weeks after he retired from the Navy. It was cold that morning, and he was wearing a heavy winter coat. He was driving his truck — his now famous black F350 with the large rims and impressive grill — when he needed to stop for gas. He pulled into a station right off highway 67.

As he got out of the truck, two men approached. Both had guns in their hands. One pointed his weapon at Kyle. They told him to hand over his keys. Kyle was out of the truck, on the passenger’s side.

“I told them I would get them the keys,” he told me. “I told them they were in the truck and to just let me reach in.”

He noticed the man pointing the gun didn’t seem very confident. Kyle knew what confidence with a gun looked like.

As Kyle turned, leaning into the open passenger door of the truck, he reached into his own waistband. With his right hand, he grabbed his Colt 1911. He fired two shots under his left armpit, hitting the first guy twice in the chest. Then he turned slightly and fired twice more, hitting the second man twice in the chest. Both men fell dead.

Kyle leaned on his truck and waited for the police.

He said he was later told that trucks like his are very popular among car thieves because they’re frequently taken over the Mexican border. He said they’d passed up the car in front of his, even though it was a relatively new Cadillac.

Kyle told me that the entire incident was caught on the gas station’s surveillance cameras. He said he gave the responding officers a phone number to call. Presumably someone high up in the government explained to the officers who Kyle was. He said the officers were very understanding, that they didn’t want to drag a just-home, highly decoratated veteran into a messy legal situation that would surely draw a harsh media spotlight.

Kyle told me that he knew the tape was out there somewhere, because he would randomly get emails from police officers all over the country, thanking him for “cleaning up the streets.”

Several of Kyle’s friends were familiar with the incident, and they had heard virtually the same story. After our talk, I called the police chiefs of several towns along 67. Most of them had heard of the incident. One, speaking only on background, said he knew some of his men had at least seen the tape. But request after request provided no police reports and no tape.

We’ve debated here at the office exactly how to handle this. Honestly, I wanted to tell the entire world about it on the afternoon it was confirmed. But I always wanted to tell that story in the context of a larger story about Chris Kyle, about his service, about the amazing things he’s done for other veterans, and about how hard he worked to adjust back to this world — to become the great husband and father and Christian he’d always wanted to be.

Now that the story is coming out in other places, though, it needed to be confirmed. So consider this story confirmed from the man himself. In every sense of the word, Chris Kyle was a true American badass.

And then the refutation:

Supporting veterans was only one way that Kyle tried to establish a new identity off the battlefield; it was hard to let go of being a hero. In January, 2010, Kyle later told friends, he was once again put to the test: two men tried to carjack his truck. He was parked at a gas station, southwest of Dallas. “He told the robbers that he just needed to reach back into the truck to get the keys,” Michael J. Mooney wrote in a recent article about Kyle, in D Magazine. Mooney, who had worked on the piece with Kyle’s coöperation, wrote that Kyle “turned around and reached under his winter coat instead, into his waistband. With his right hand, he grabbed his Colt 1911”—a sidearm that is popular with military personnel. “He fired two shots under his left armpit, hitting the first man twice in the chest. Then he turned slightly and fired two more times, hitting the second man twice in the chest. Both men fell dead.”

Police officers arrived at the scene. When they ran Kyle’s license, Mooney wrote, something unusual occurred: “Instead of his name, address, and date of birth, what came up was a phone number at the Department of Defense. At the other end of the line was someone who explained that the police were in the presence of one of the most skilled fighters in U.S. military history.” According to Kyle, security cameras documented the episode.

Like Mooney, I also heard many of Kyle’s friends and associates tell this story. Details varied, but the ending was the same: Kyle drove away without being charged and, as Mooney put it in a related blog post, later received “e-mails from police officers all over the country, thanking him for ‘cleaning up the streets.’ ” Mooney never saw the security tape or found other corroborating evidence, such as police files or a coroner’s report for the dead carjackers. “Consider this story confirmed by the man himself,” he wrote in the blog post, in which he described Kyle as a “true American badass” and a “real-life action hero.”

There is cause to be skeptical. The counties of Erath, Somervell, and Johnson cover the stretch of highway where the incident supposedly happened. Tommy Bryant, the sheriff of Erath County, told me that he could “guar-an-damn-tee it didn’t happen here.” Greg Doyle, the sheriff of Somervell County, said that he had “never heard” the story, which he found “kinda shocking,” and added, “It did not occur here.” Bob Alford, the sheriff of Johnson County, told a local reporter, “If something like that happened here I would have heard of it, and I’m sure you all at the newspaper would have heard of it.” These denials do not automatically disprove the story, of course. And it’s true that certain operatives, from certain government offices and agencies, drive government-registered vehicles whose license plates prompt civilian authorities to contact a call center in the event of an accident or a traffic stop. But a SEAL with extensive experience in special-mission units told me that the notion of such a provision being in place for a former SEAL driving a private vehicle was “bullshit.”


So, yeah, I agree with you that Kyle had a tendancy to, um, overstate his exploits.
 

rudder

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
19,441
85
91
So everyone that has/had PTSD has a mental illness that should preclude them from handling a firearm?
From what I have been told, it can be therapeutic for some with PTSD to shoot again. For others, they want nothing to do with it.

Rather broad generalizations you've thrown out there.

And no, I haven't seen the movie - did read the book.

bshole was told by diane feinstein that all veterans have mental illnesses and should not have guns. Like a good lap dog he pimps the words of his masters.
 

rommelrommel

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2002
4,370
3,077
146
See post #15 above, it has the link right in it!

Well, you can count but you can't read. Kyle didn't tell that one on the record. And Ventura and Kyle were in that bar the same night so how you can know for a fact that they never met I don't know.
 

Blanky

Platinum Member
Oct 18, 2014
2,457
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Overall it was a good movie but suffers the same thing lone survivor did. People who cannot be bothered to research will take it as gospel even though it knowingly distorts the truth, and to a large degree. Fury was a much better war movie.