As controversy rages over American Sniper, many supporters of the movie have suggested that it’s apolitical and shouldn’t be construed as supportive of war or bigotry; that it’s merely a character study of a tortured soldier. The problem with that analysis is that the film isn’t focused on a group of soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or the difficulties with being reacquainted with civilian life, or the inadequacies of the Veterans Administration.

The movie is about Chris Kyle, a remorseless sniper who said his job was “fun” and wished he could return to Iraq to fight even more, and who made millions of dollars and gained worldwide fame writing about his exploits. If anything, Kyle is the absolute worst soldier one could pick to talk about soldiers coming home and our need to take care of them. The way he wrote and talked about his time in Iraq, one would think the war was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Filmmaker Clint Eastwood has responded to critics by noting he was against going to war in Iraq, and was skeptical of the war in Afghanistan as well. This doesn’t explain why Eastwood chose to base his film on a soldier who viewed the war as both just and enjoyable, and it doesn’t excuse him rendering the Iraqi characters of the film into mere props, either helpless civilians or evil terrorists. Nor does it justify Eastwood’s use of 9/11 imagery in the film to imply that invading Iraq was revenge for terrorist attacks, which is a bastardization of history that has been used by war proponents. If Eastwood does consider himself a war critic, it appears he threw out his own principles in order to make a film that wouldn’t ask its viewers any challenging questions about the war.

Whatever Eastwood’s intent, the most damning indictment comes from how the film is being received. Critics of American Sniper‘s portrayal of Chris Kyle have received a torrent of death threats, even calls for decapitation, and the film has spawned an outpouring of anti-Muslim bigotry on social media.