With 160 confirmed kills — though he may have had at least a hundred more — Chris Kyle is considered the most prolific sniper in American history. As the title of his bestselling memoir, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History, reveals, he carried the statistic like a badge of honour. Moreover, sentences in his book such as, “I couldn’t give a flying [expletive deleted] about the Iraqis” and “I hate the damn savages”, “I only wish I had killed more”, “I’m not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun”, seem to be a window into the mind of a sociopath.

Clint Eastwood offers an appreciably impartial observation of Kyle’s delusional attitude. Early in the film, Kyle is shown to be motivated into joining the war in Iraq after the attack of September 11. This isn’t a claim by Eastwood that the invasion of Iraq was justified by 9/11 but an examination of Kyle’s drone-like mentality.