By Owen Hentschel
EMS Press
Traverse City East MS
1st Place
Division MS, News Writing
Review
American Sniper is a movie based on the autobiographical book, “American Sniper: The True Story of the Most Lethal Sniper in Military History” written by Chris Kyle.
Despite the fact that both the movie and the book portray Kyle’s experiences as a military sniper, the two are not the same. Some of the things in the movie actually happened and some things did not.
For example, in the movie Chris Kyle (played by Bradley Cooper) applies to joins the Navy SEALs after seeing TV coverage of the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Though Kyle did officially enlist in the months following these attacks, they had nothing to do with his decision.
One of the primary events in the movie is Kyle’s on-going pursuit of an enemy sniper named Mustafa. Mustafa was a real person, but he holds far less significance in the book, at least in relation to Kyle. Also in the movie Kyle kills Mustafa with a 2,100-yard shot. In the book Kyle did make a 2,100 yard shot but it was to take out a random combatant on a rooftop who was about to fire an RPG at an Army convoy. He never succeeded in killing Mustafa.
In the book, insurgents put a $20,000 bounty on all snipers’ heads, but in the movie they put a fictional $180,000 bounty on Kyle’s head.
But the biggest difference in the two mediums is the message. The movie portrays Kyle as conflicted in his role as a sniper and shows the toll it takes on him and his family. In the book, however, Kyle shows less regret. In fact, he says “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.”
In both portrayals, as in Kyle’s real life, the end is a tragedy. After serving four tours in Iraq, three gunshot wounds, two helicopter crashes, six IED attacks and numerous surgeries, he and his friend Chad Littlefield were shot to death at a Texas gun range by a soldier they were trying to help. After Kyle’s discharge, he was actively involved in helping soldiers deal with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) after they returned from active duty. On February 2, 2013, Kyle and Littlefield took fellow Iraq War veteran Eddie Ray Routh with them to a rifle range in Glen Rose Texas. Routh had been dealing with PTSD and was having difficulty adjusting to postwar life. Routh shot both men and stole Kyle’s truck.
On February 25, 2015, Routh was convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole.