Clint Doesn't Get My Coin

I like to read the book before I see the film. American Psycho Sniper is a difficult one to write a fair review of, particularly as a non-American. As I was reading it I found myself almost laughing at what an unreconstructed plonker the guy was. What I didn't know until the end, was that he was killed recently and the edition of the book I read had the testimonials and memorials from many who knew him, after the main body of the book. While it's not traditional to bad-mouth people in that sort of message, they couldn't say enough how good he was. He evidently touched a lot of people's lives in a positive way.

Now, let's pretend that he's still around so that I get the chance to warn you off this book in an honest fashion, without feeling like I'm speaking ill of the dead.

It is jaw-dropping in its infantile view of the world, the blind patriotism, the one-eyed religious bigotry and the unexamined hypocrisy. It's sort of like Ronald Reagan whispered his fevered fantasies into Donald Rumsfeld's ear, who then in turn dictated them to Captain America's, Down-Syndrome brother.

The guy was far too happy about killing people and dressing it up in patriotism. I understand that soldiers gotta do what they gotta do, but he didn't see any problem with calling in air-strikes that would flatten entire city blocks. There is no way that only combatants were killed. He also mentions that every time he looked through a scope, there were “bad guys” for him to kill. Far more than any other snipers he was working with at the same time. You know what that suggests to me? Yeah. They weren't really all bad guys.

So, he loves killing “savages” to protect Americans and their way of life, but gets on his high horse when not everyone back home agrees with or supports what he and his comrades do. Guess what, psycho - That's one of the major things you're fighting to protect: The right to disagree.

The book is also extremely disappointing in what it doesn't talk about. If you are going to read one of these sorts of books, it's because you want to be a little bit pervy and nerdy and you want to hear what an expert has to say on the hows, whys and wherefores. As an example, he works with the Polish GROM a lot. He respects them but says there were a lot of differences in the way they did things. Then doesn't mention any of them. He's always getting into bar fights. Always. He never mentions any detail. Like I say, if you're reading a book about a SEAL, by a SEAL, you would expect to hear how a professional soldier handles these things. Nup.

He also says extraordinary things such as; the reason he didn't wear a helmet, but preferred a baseball cap on backwards, was because if you want to be cool, you have to look it.

Nup. No. Never. That is almost exactly the opposite of how real cool works.

Even more weird, is that it is just plain dull. I don't know how you achieve that when you are facing daily life-and-death situations but Chris Kyle and fellow writers managed it.

The one shining achievement that stands out for the American military machine, is the effectiveness of their indoctrination.

The delicious, horrible, mortal irony is that he was killed by one of his beloved comrades-in-arms, back home in the US. If it didn't leave a grieving family, you'd almost say it was poetic.

I will not be seeing the film.