TEHRAN, Iran – 

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has spoken out against critically acclaimed film, American Sniper, saying that he is “not a fan.” The screenplay, which portrays a real-life US soldier who killed 160 ‘enemies’, struck a nerve with the spiritual head of the Islamic country.

“The dialogue is poorly written, and some of the secondary cast is very poorly chosen,” Khamenei told TMZ. “In addition, the soundtrack does not do the visuals justice.”

Some have criticized the film for portraying Islamic people as ‘uncivilised’ and the conflict as ‘simplistic’, but the supreme leader’s criticisms have gone far beyond what he calls “possible thematic inaccuracies”, sparking a feud with director and producer, Clint Eastwood. “What bothers me most is the way the camera angles make the action look contrived, bastardized to resemble any other Hollywood action movie,” he added.

Eastwood, who reminded us that he is the man responsible for the highest-grossing war film in history, hit back at Khamenei’s comments, saying, “Who is he to judge? I’ve seen his work. [1991 Iranian drama] Mother totally sucked – yes, it wasn’t Hollywood-ised, and it was gritty and moving, but it hardly had a budget, and some of the actors were clearly amateur and didn’t even speak English!”

After half an hour of Googling the Ayatollah’s 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, “Eastwood is legendary. Don’t f*** with him.”