Solid Snake

That's what I saw too. Like... the things he did in the military is all fine and dandy but this guy was fucked up. How the hell could someone celebrate that considering a lot of film shows him all fucked up. We only get a small bit of him "getting better" or whatever.

mcnabb

That's what makes me laugh about many of these Hollywood lefties cause you never see anyone ever take a shot at any movie, as it is sort of their code to never badmouth a movie. You see actors constantly go on any talk show, and the host says that whatever movie they are promoting is 'the greatest movie in the world' just to hype it. But for some reason this movie struck a nerve where people in Hollywood are actually taking sides on the movie.

Brack

Maher really isn't part of the mainstream media. He says things that many disagree with, but his points are almost always valid points, and that's why he gets so many peoples' panties in a bunch.

EddieMoney

He was almost robotic in his commitment. I got the sense he didn't necessarily believe in what he was doing, except that it was his "job." The exchange with the guy he saved in the service center showed a lot of that. He didn't seem too proud of his accomplishments. Being looked at as a military legend for his 160 kills was not something he seemed to be able to reconcile.

Solid Snake

Yeah. The repair shop or whatever showed how comfortable he was with all that. Which wasn't all that comfortable. I don't see how someone could celebrate a man who didn't want to be celebrated for his actions, as the film shows. MAYBE the book/man paints himself as something else but the movie wasn't exactly all praising the fellow.

EddieMoney

He put his need to go another tour over those of his family. I don't feel like Eastwood portrayed that in a heroic light.

It's a film about a very imperfect man, and I thought that was conveyed fairly well.

Brack

Unfortunately that was a fantasy version of Kyle, which is ironic since he may have written a fantasy of a book. Based on statements from his own book, he was very proud of his kills. Whether or not that's true, I have no way to say one way or the other, but seems to me the movie is purposely being manipulative with this character trait. I'm curious to see the film, just out of curiosity of how anyone can call this movie nonpolitical when is seems very political in terms of how his character is portrayed when in reality he doesn't come across as someone who had to come to terms with his kills, based on the book, thus leading to me to believe this film carries with it a level of war propaganda.

EddieMoney

Perhaps, but if there was not some degree of remorse hinted at in the film, can you imagine what the reaction would be? I would imagine many liberties were taken with the film, because, well...it's a film.

Paul_SD

It seems to me Kyle's story is rife with irony. It's woven into the DNA of the whole thing- not just in the micro of his personal story, but in the macro of the conflict/mission/war in general.
And yet from everything I'm reading, that irony is nowhere on this films radar.

I guess any acknowledgment of that irony would have made this a flat out politically liberal movie and definitely is not something the prime audience that enjoys it now would appreciate.

inri222

I only wish I had killed more... I loved what I did. I still do. If circumstances were different – if my family didn’t need me – I’d be back in a heartbeat.
I’m not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun. I had the time of my life being a SEAL.

Sean O'Hara

Sure sounds like it.

Having grown up on military bases, I've seen guys like this. They're the sort of people other soldiers don't want in their unit, because his idea of heroism would get people hurt. Luckily he had the skills to be a sniper, so other troops were insulated from him.

Solid Snake

Wow. Yeah....ok. Uh... I'm amazed he didn't call anyone a sand n igger. Might as well by that point.

mcnabb

And how many soldiers from the Vietnam generation hated the 'gooks' as they would call them? Or how many soldiers hated the 'Japs' and 'Krauts' during WWII?

Yes, they are all racial slurs of the enemy, but it says more about what a war does to a solider, then the solider himself. All I can say is I have never served a day in combat in my life, so I will never question the motives of a person who lone job it is to protect our country through killing people everyday. War is fucked up, and it doesn't suprise me one bit that the people who serve in war get that fucked up too.

inri222

He did think that he was a Crusader in a holy war :

http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan...kyle-believed-

Kyle seemed to consider himself a cross between a lawman and an executioner. His platoon had spray-painted the image of the Punisher—a Marvel Comics character who wages “a one-man war upon crime”—on their flak jackets and helmets. ... Like many soldiers, Kyle was deeply religious and saw the Iraq War through that prism. He tattooed one of his arms with a red crusader’s cross, wanting “everyone to know I was a Christian.

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/07/deat...erican_sniper/

In Kyle’s version of the Iraq War, the parties consisted of Americans, who are good by virtue of being American, and fanatic Muslims whose “savage, despicable evil” led them to want to kill Americans simply because they are Christians. (Later in his service, Kyle had a blood-red “crusader cross” tattooed on his arm.)

Logo for Kyle's company with Crusader's cross:

Sean O'Hara

Saying that about people you're facing in battle is one thing, but Kyle was saying it about all Iraqis, and indeed all Muslims in general -- remember, this is a guy who had a crusader cross tattooed on his arm because he felt he was doing a holy mission. Soldiers who went into Germany and Japan after the war were sympathetic to the civilians they saw as victims of tyrannical governments; soldiers in Korea and Vietnam came home with wives.

This is one of the biggest problems with our country. Soldiers are just guys doing a job. A dangerous job, sure, but that doesn't put them above criticism. I find it really disturbing when people put them on pedestals and say we civilians shouldn't criticize them. That's the attitude that allows the atrocities at Abu Ghraib to go unpunished, and if it's left unchecked, it'll lead this country to fascism.

mcnabb

You don't think atrocoties by our soliders never happened over in WWI? WWII? Korea? Vietnam? I think you're being very naive, as war breeds terrible stuff like that. The difference is those generations just didn't talk about their service like they do now, so you'll never hear stories like that. I know my best friends uncle (who served 2 tours in Vietnam) rarely talked about his experience over there. I knew he threw away his medals because he felt it was a worthless war to serve in years later, and just said, "I don't even want to begin to tell you about the shit that went on over there." My friend would tell me he was so jaded after he got back from Vietnam, that he was the shell of the man he was before serving.

I wasn't glorifying soliders, as no doubt people at Abu Ghraib should be held accountable (which they were.) All I'm saying is that I never served a day in the military (I assumed you didn't either), so its very hard for me to judge someone who lives 24/7 getting shot at it in a foreign land and job is to kill the opposing soldiers. That stuff has got to fuck with anyone who serves, as I think calling it a job is an understatement. I would call it a 'fucked up' job! Now of course every solider handles it differently, but I am never one to judge his or her 'nental state' when I'm sitting home on my ass while they protect me.

And I don't say this as some Pro-War conservative like Dick Cheney, as I am as anti-war as you get on the conservative side. I'm pretty much an isolationalist when it comes the Republican Party, as most of the time its none of our fucking business as we shouldn't be policeman to the world. I say that because War is fucked up, and it pisses me off when politicans and pro-war people send our kids over there, and their kids are sitting at home because they don't want 'them' to serve.

Sean O'Hara

Where did I say otherwise? Just because this is an old pattern doesn't mean we should accept it with a shrug.

My father was in the Army for twenty years. I grew up surrounded by soldiers. Believe me, they are just guys, and like any sampling of American guys, quite a few of them are assholes. We shouldn't give free passes to the assholes just because they're in the military. Doing so disrespects the genuinely good people who serve our country, and it enables the worst excesses of our military as an organization. That's true whether you're saying, "I can't judge people who protect our country," or "Don't you dare criticize them."

d2cheer

Very true even though I have issues with the guy lying. Anyone whining about it being a Republican movie must of had their eyes shut the whole time.

AND the other reason it is doing so well....


America Fuck Yea!!

Shannon Nutt

His comments about Kyle were taken WAY out of context from what Kyle really said. Yes, he called the Iraqi soldiers "savages", but in the VERY SAME sentence, he said he regretted not being able to protect/save Iraqi civilians who were tortured and abused by those soldiers. Maher totally ignored that part and claimed that Kyle said ALL Iraqis were savages - which is total BS, and Maher knows it.

As for Kyle's being labeled a liar because of his tall tales re: Ventura, New Orleans, and other incidents...the dude is from Texas and probably doesn't know any better...I'm sure we all went to high school with at least one major BS'er like Kyle. That doesn't take away from what he did in Iraq.

Brack

So his idiocy gets a pass? Again with championing mediocrity. It's ironic you say he "doesn't know any better" yet believe he didn't call them all savages that he killed, which is a complete and utter lie. I guess we have a different definition of the word savages.

Keep in mind we invaded Iraq under false pretenses. So calling them "savages" the same people where we destroyed their country is laughable to say the least. So yeah, it takes away a lot of what he did in Iraq, since we should have never been there to begin with. It had nothing to do with 9/11. I always knew the war was a joke from day one when Collin Powell was at the UN with yellow powder. It's a shame some kid in his early 20s at the time knew it was all bs, and yet this movie wants to justify our existence in Iraq.

Neil M.

This movie does not even come close to justifying the war in Iraq. In fact, it pretty much ignores the politics of why we went to war.

Why So Blu?

I would sue the Kyle estate if I were Marvel. That's a Punisher emblem.

Brack

Protect you from what exactly? Invading the United States? Like Iraq and Afghanistan have any means of doing so. Let's be honest, hundreds of thousands of people are dead because some guys got lucky with box cutters, and our country overreacted, and focusing on this one guy's efforts as "courageous" is an insult to the concept of courage.

Brack

Just because the film doesn't plainly ask "why are we here?" doesn't ignore the politics. The movie boils down to the "good guys" versus the "bad guys". It's simple and basic, but still political, even if it is down half-assed and easy so audiences don't have to think about it. It's brilliant in that sense.

Neil M.

Did we see the same movie?