About: Eye in the Sky (2015) [Blu-ray]

Eye in the Sky (2015) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Thriller | War

Tagline: The commander is in England. The drone pilot is in America. The terrorist is in Kenya. And the authority to strike is up in the air.

Colonel Katherine Powell, commander of a top secret drone operation, discovers that terrorists are planning a suicide bombing. As American pilot Steve Watts is about to engage, a nine-year old girl enters the kill zone, triggering an international dispute.

Storyline: Eye in the Sky stars Helen Mirren as Colonel Katherine Powell, a UK-based military officer in command of a top secret drone operation to capture terrorists in Kenya. Through remote surveillance and on-the-ground intel, Powell discovers the targets are planning a suicide bombing and the mission escalates from "capture" to "kill." But as American pilot Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) is about to engage, a nine-year old girl enters the kill zone triggering an international dispute, reaching the highest levels of US and British government, over the moral, political, and personal implications of modern warfare. Written by Bleecker Street

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, June 28, 2016 Warfare in the post 9/11 world has largely shifted away from the more traditional army-versus-army confrontations of the past to a different, but no less dangerous, asymmetrical style of warfare, pitting advanced national militaries against less sophisticated, less organized, and less technologically advanced militants whose M.O. is the quick strike, often against soft civilian targets, rather than the large clash on the field of battle. Just on the very day this review was published, a terror attack rocked Turkey's Istanbul Ataturk Airport, killing dozens and injuring many more. It's symbolic of the new world of warfare that's at the heart of Eye in the Sky, Director Gavin Hood's (Ender's Game) cutting-edge film that not only explores the real time, globally stretched, and multinational cooperative undertaking that is the war on terror but also the ethical dilemmas that come with it, that evolve from the rapid advances in technology that, even for those large standing armies, make warfare far less intimate, but no less personal. How does pulling the trigger alter the lives of all involved, on both sides of the attack, and on those innocently caught in the middle?

A joint British-U.S.-Kenyan operation is underway to pinpoint the location of a wanted terrorist working out of Kenya. It's a snatch-and-grab mission, supported by both an observer on the ground named Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi) and a U.S.-based drone pilot named Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) providing real-time aerial reconnaissance from half a world away. Heading the mission is British Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Miren) and Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman). When Farah's intelligence gathering operation reveals suicide vests and explosives in the surveyed home and the high value target is located inside -- along with a wanted British national who has shifted her allegiance to the Al-Shabaab terrorist network -- Powell deems the mission parameters changed and seeks authority up the chain of command to instead fire one of the drone's two hellfire missiles into the home, killing the terrorists and foiling what is certain to be a deadly terror attack. Before the missile can be launched, however, a young Kenyan girl named Alia (Aisha Takow) sets up shop in front of the target building, peddling homemade bread to locals. She's within the blast radius and certain to be a casualty in the attack. The drone pilot, the commanding officers, politicians, and bureaucrats must weigh the cost of killing innocents in the strike in order to save many more from future terror plots being organized right in their crosshairs.

Eye in the Sky released not too distant from Good Kill, another film that similarly explores the moral, ethical, and personal reactions to, and responsibilities of, modern drone warfare. Eye in the Sky offers a somewhat broader and multinational viewpoint but is in many ways the same core movie covering the same core principles. That the two films released in such close proximity and share such a deep fundamental purpose only underscores the importance of understanding how the modern world, with its technological advances so rapid, clashes with the largely stagnant human condition that values compassion and intimacy, even when the greater world sometimes challenges one's ability to tightly adhere those fundamental emotions. Eye in the Sky doesn't necessarily explore with any greater depth than its counterpart, but it does a fine job of building the larger narrative that clashes with the immediacy of modern warfare, the evolving field of battle, political considerations, personal values, and the greater ethical dilemmas that hang over every decision. The film weighs intimate, up-close-and-personal pros and cons that were heretofore unheard of, that come with the ability execute warfare like a video game but without the safety in the knowledge that the deaths that result are merely digital sprites in a make-believe world rather flesh and blood.

However, Good Kill doesn't explore with much gusto. The movie is unremarkably bland, ethically challenging and mentally stimulating, yes, but a film that's stylistically diluted to the point that it becomes a minor chore to watch. That certainly allows Director Gavin Hood to keep the focus squarely on the people and the questions and challenges that arise, but there's no mistaking the movie's staleness and lack of engagement beyond its core. The sets are terribly spartan, again underscoring the cold and distant nature of drone warfare, allowing the humanity of the players to fill in the blanks. Still, the film suffers from a sense of emptiness, playing out like a hurriedly constructed stage production that has assembled a fantastic core but only the bare essentials around it to sell the audience on the illusion and maintain a laser-like focus on story rather than production design. The performances are a little empty, too. There's emotion, but not passion. There's humanity, but not well rounded human beings. The film employs two of the best in Helen Miren and the late Alan Rickman and surrounds them with top-grade talent like Aaron Paul and Barkhad Abdi, but they don't always channel the deepest core human depths one would expect of a picture of this dramatic significance, instead more delivering lines than feeling them, grasping the gravity of what they're doing but not the deeply personal underpinnings that drive the narrative.

Eye in the Sky takes a similar path through modern warfare and the human condition as did Good Kill, but this film lacks the spark of the other. Eye is a rather dry and stale production, soaring to be sure in terms of depth but failing to find the support pieces necessary to keep it of interest beyond its engaging core. Good Kill is the full package and, of the two recent "ethical dilemma/drone" movies, the one to watch. Universal's release of Eye in the Sky is just as spartan and bland as the movie. Video is passable, audio is technically sound and enjoys a few very good moments, and the supplements are hugely disappointing. Rent it.

[CSW] -2.4- This reviewer said it better than I could:

Tries so hard to be complex and many sided, yet ultimately the story takes the direct (but speed-bump laden) route to exactly where you think it's going. A twist, a turn, a surprise or two would have really been refreshing. Even the closing credit sequence was a slow-motion, emotionally manipulative cliché; just in case after watching the movie you didn't "get it". Great cast and superb cinematography-- I blame the writers for believing the audience wants the obvious. You and I can get the message of the film and still enjoy irony and something unexpected in a story. Without those qualities I leave the movie feeling like I've been "preached to."

A point missed was a study that said that less than 25% of the soldiers in World War II actually shot "at" the enemy the rest only shot in the direction "of" the enemy. The military change their training to "instinct" shooting causing the soldiers to frequently accidently hit the enemy. After the first few accidental kills the rate went up to about 75% of the soldiers actually shooting "at" the enemy. And the PTSD increased from about 20% for WWII to about 75% for post WWII soldiers that saw heavy combat. Solders have exactly the same dilemma on a personal level as this movie depicted, and as shown... it is without any reasonable alternative. Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't. War is hell.
[V3.5-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

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