American Sniper is a film that has been seriously hyped up. With 6 Oscar nominations (including Best Picture and Best Actor for Bradley Cooper) and highly favorable reviews, Clint Eastwood seems to have struck cinematic gold. It's been hailed by many as a riveting tour de force that's intriguingly a war film and anti-war film at the same time.

But while American audiences have driven the film to breaking box offices records, the film's portrayal of Arabs might present some problems for Middle Eastern markets, as the film hits regional theaters this month.

Based on Chris Kyle's autobiography American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, the film is the story of real life American "hero", Chris Kyle, who has been dubbed the deadliest marksman in US military history with 255 kills (160 kills actually confirmed by the Pentagon).

While the film is action packed, there's something not particularly exciting about it. It's dull, uninteresting and drags. The four tours in Iraq seem to take an eternity. Kyle's character is rather flat (Texan patriot who thinks America is the best country in the world, no questions asked) and the portrayal of the war is one sided with 99.9% of Iraqis depicted as conniving people bent on killing Americans (even the women and children are keen to kill Americans). In other words things are not put into context. While this was most probably done deliberately to present Kyle's vision of things, it makes the film lack the proper complexity one would expect from an Eastwood film. Kyle's rather robotic, mostly 2D character could also be a statement about what being a solider and experiencing war can do to a person, but here again, there's something missing.

The most interesting moment happens at the very end of the film and would have been something worth exploring. In fact, the film could have been built around Kyle's murder by a veteran he was trying to help and would have resulted in a powerful film that raises many questions about war and heroism. Instead American Sniper is a film that doesn't realize its true potential. As far as war movies go, this is not one of the best. It's not on par with say Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, The Thin Red Line or even Eastwood's own Letters from Iwo Jima .

While the appeal to an American audience is rather clear, how Middle Eastern viewers will react remains to be seen.

Our rating: 6 Steps out of 10.

Watch the trailer: