The New Republic published an article yesterday that is a movie review of the new Bradly Cooper film American Sniper that dramatizes the actions of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. The writer, Dennis Jett, is a career diplomat and university professor. What makes this review so interesting is that Jett didn’t bother to see the movie and mentions that in the review.
Now, to be fair, he has read Chris Kyle’s autobiography, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, or at least he mentions it like he read it and doesn’t let us know if he didn’t read that either. Most movie reviewers likely haven’t read the book, but seriously, would it have been worth 2 hours of Jett’s live to watch the movie before critiquing it?
Jett makes an interesting analysis, that would be worthy of discussion if he had only bothered to see the movie he was writing about.