Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has denounced filmmaker Michael Moore for attacking the hit new film "American Sniper" about war hero Chris Kyle.
Hollywood star Rob Lowe also ripped into Moore for saying that snipers are cowards not heroes, while Jane Fonda surprisingly also came out in support of the movie directed by Clint Eastwood,
The Daily Beast reported.
Moore, a left-wing filmmaker,
tweeted to his 1.79 million followers: "My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren't heroes."
And referring to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, Moore added: "And invaders r worse."
In 2003, Moore was booed when he denounced the Iraq War and then-President George W. Bush in his Oscar acceptance speech.
Gingrich, a conservative pundit with CNN's "Crossfire," has now fired back at Moore in a tweet, saying: "Michael Moore should spend a few weeks with ISIS and Boko Haram. Then he might appreciate American Sniper. I am proud of our defenders."
Lowe, currently appearing in a string of commercials for DirecTV, also fired off a tweet condemning the documentary filmmaker.
Fonda called the movie "powerful" and said that it was "another view" of her Oscar-winning Vietnam War drama "Coming Home," about a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Bradley Cooper sensation. Bravo Clint Eastwood," she added.
Her tweet came hot on the heels of her apology over the weekend for her trip to North Vietnam in 1972 that earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane,"
according to The Daily Caller.
She called it a "huge mistake" during comments she made at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Md., while 50 veterans of the Vietnam War picketed the center.
"Those people out there… I'm a lightning rod," said Fonda, according to The Frederick News-Post. "This famous person goes and does something that looks like I'm against the troops, which wasn't true, but it looked that way, and I'm a convenient target. So I understand."
Actor Seth Rogen, who stars in the movie "The Interview" that angered North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, appeared to back Moore's criticism of "American Sniper."
In a tweet, he compared the film to the faux Nazi propaganda film in "Inglourious Basterds," in which a German sniper re-enacts a "heroic" episode about him picking off 200 Allied soldiers from a clock tower.
Starring Bradley Cooper, "American Sniper" is based on the true story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, a special forces sharpshooter who was credited with 160 confirmed kills.
Kyle, who believed that he actually shot 255 enemy soldiers, was dubbed the most lethal sniper in American history.
In February 2013, Kyle was shot dead in Texas by Eddie Ray Routh, a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, whom Kyle had befriended and was trying to help. Thousands of people attended the funeral.
According to reports, the film grossed a whopping $90.2 million in its
opening weekend in the U.S. to set a record for January, far surpassing the previous record of $68.5 million set by James Cameron's "Avatar."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.