#bcoops

a: A ton of loose ends (what happened to his brother?  I didn't read the book, I don't know!)

b: Cringe-worthy cliches (Him finding out they were being shipped out AT his wedding?  Come on.  Come ON.)

c: A very shallow portrait of a very complex man.  I felt no real connection to him.  And in all but the last scene, it was like Kyle had no personality.  This worked in a few of the scenes (his stakeouts, the PTSD stuff), but for the most part, I didn't care about the character at all.  He was just... there.  (I wonder if this is an acting choice of Bradley Cooper's.  He didn't stand out to me at all, which was disappointed.

d: A very shallow portrait of a, I'm assuming, very complex woman.  I get why his wife would have been upset about his constant deployments, but that was ALL we saw of her character.  As a friend of mine pointed out, we virtually never see her happy.  And when we do, it's all focused on Chris.  She comes off as rather shrill, and not ever very supportive.  Again, it made for very little sympathy.

e: A very shallow portrait of a very complex disease.  I'll admit that I don't know much about Chris Kyle.  What little I know about him, even from before he died, was that he was very active in helping soldiers with PTSD.  In fact, this is what eventually got him killed.  But in the film, we as an audience were TOLD Kyle had something wrong, we saw glimpses of it, but five minutes later, he was fine.  The soldiers that he helped out were wounded, but it did not delve into any lasting mental repercussions of their service.  Given that this was so important to Kyle and such a huge issue in the nation right now, why wouldn't they take this opportunity to show it and explain it more?  We never learn that Kyle's attacker was (is?) suffering from this disorder.  He just seems kind of creepy when we see him.

(Side note: If you want to see an excellent portrayal of PTSD, check out the West Wing episode "Noel."  Brilliant.)

I'm not going to get into the movie's blatant propaganda or the problematic things that Kyle has said or the problematic way Iraqis are portrayed in the film (How am I supposed to teach my students about Islam when every week I have one of them tell me "Muslims are terrorists"?).  I don't want to get into the controversy.