CLINT Eastwood’s 35th feature as director since “Play Misty For Me” in 1971 examines the conflicts between Chris Kyle’s profession and his family life.

Kyle wanted to be a cowboy. But as a US Navy SEAL he served four tours of Middle Eastern conflicts, where his skill with a rifle led him to become a sniper, laying up in concealment to protect infantry in the open. He saw his role as honourable and necessary.

On his last tour, he focused on taking out an enemy sniper with skills equal to his own.

Eastwood’s staging of the film’s battle sequences is, as you might expect, credible. Drawing from the book Kyle wrote about his experiences, Jason Hall’s screenplay deftly intertwines the heat, dust, noise, danger and emotional tensions of military events, with the anxiety of the wife and children awaiting the soldier’s homecoming. Battle sequences, with both sides using IT for command and control, offer incongruous moments. As Kyle is preparing to decide when a mother and her son might indeed be about to hurl a grenade into a US position, his mobile rings; his wife has domestic matters to discuss.

Bradley Cooper is convincing as Kyle, Sienna Miller is brave as his wife. Sequences filmed in military hospitals show real and horrendous battle wounds. Eastwood didn’t direct the images at the closing credits; drawn from national TV, they say much about American patriotism.

At all cinemas