Iranâs Supreme Leader Not a Fan of âAmerican Sniperâ
Iranâs Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has spoken out against critically acclaimed film, American Sniper, saying that he is ânot a fan.â The screenplay, which portrays a real-life US soldier who killed 160 âenemiesâ, struck a nerve with the spiritual head of the Islamic country.âThe dialogue is poorly written, and some of the secondary cast is very poorly chosen,â Khamenei told TMZ. âIn addition, the soundtrack does not do the visuals justice.âSome have criticized the film for portraying Islamic people as âuncivilisedâ and the conflict as âsimplisticâ, but the supreme leaderâs criticisms have gone far beyond what he calls âpossible thematic inaccuraciesâ, sparking a feud with director and producer, Clint Eastwood. âWhat bothers me most is the way the camera angles make the action look contrived, bastardized to resemble any other Hollywood action movie,â he added.Eastwood, who reminded us that he is the man responsible forÂ the highest-grossing war film in history, hit back at Khameneiâs comments, saying, âWho is he to judge? Iâve seen his work. [1991 Iranian drama] Mother totally sucked â yes, it wasnât Hollywood-ised, and it was gritty and moving, but it hardly had a budget, and some of the actors were clearly amateur and didnât even speak English!âAfter half an hour of Googling the Ayatollahâs filmography, we managed to track down the movie in question, and found it to be attributed to Iranian director Ali Hatami, and not Khamenei, to whom Eastwood inaccurately credited it.Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, publicly disagreed with the supreme leader, simply saying, âEastwood is legendary. Donât f*** with him.â