Eye in the Sky
Directed by: Gavin Hood
Written by: Guy Hibbert
Starring: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, Iain Glen, Phoebe Fox, Monica Dolan, Kim Engelbrecht
Drama/Thriller/War - 102 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 14 Mar 2016
Written by: Guy Hibbert
Starring: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, Iain Glen, Phoebe Fox, Monica Dolan, Kim Engelbrecht
Drama/Thriller/War - 102 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 14 Mar 2016
A long production schedule may help Eye in the Sky in the end. Its philosophical and suspenseful study of drone warfare’s current state is impeccably timed. Issues, accusations, and counter-accusations concerning drones appear daily in the headlines. The capability of leading Western nations able to firmly reach and touch someone leads to inevitable infighting regarding acceptable loss of life, rules of engagement, and collateral damage. Military forces chafe under political restrictions and politicians agonize over how today’s strike will play in tomorrow’s news. Director Gavin Hood intensifies the drone debate through the lens of one strike and its second and third order consequences. Eye in the Sky is fascinating and suspenseful all the way through.
There are five or six integral characters involved in a drone operation spying on Al-Shabab terrorists waiting for the right time to capture or kill the bad guys. All credit goes to Guy Hibbert’s nail-biting script for maintaining constant tension. While no lead characters are in the same room together, their arguments play out over telephones and video chat making us hold our collective breath. The mission leader in Surrey checks in with her superiors in London, keeps tabs on the drone pilot in Nevada, works with the face recognition analyst in Hawaii, and tasks the ground operatives in Nairobi, Kenya to track and report back on the targets’ whereabouts and intentions.
There are five or six integral characters involved in a drone operation spying on Al-Shabab terrorists waiting for the right time to capture or kill the bad guys. All credit goes to Guy Hibbert’s nail-biting script for maintaining constant tension. While no lead characters are in the same room together, their arguments play out over telephones and video chat making us hold our collective breath. The mission leader in Surrey checks in with her superiors in London, keeps tabs on the drone pilot in Nevada, works with the face recognition analyst in Hawaii, and tasks the ground operatives in Nairobi, Kenya to track and report back on the targets’ whereabouts and intentions.
Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren, Woman in Gold) stares intently at video screens showing the video feed spying on a terrorist compound in Kenya. She’s been tracking a radicalized female British national for years and finally has credible intelligence on where and when she will be today. Going in on foot would produce unacceptable casualty levels on all sides so firing a missile from the orbiting MQ-9 Reaper is the safest course of action. What is putting a wrench in the otherwise seamless operation is an unaware nine year old girl selling bread just outside the compound’s wall. Any missile striking the house and igniting secondary explosions will almost certainly kill the girl.
Whether or not the girl will live or die boils down to percentages. Colonel Powell leans on her targeteer to massage the numbers to get her life expectancy to at least 50%. Powell’s direct superior, General Benson (Alan Rickman), has the unpleasant task of trying to convince the politicians to authorize the strike because it’s either this girl or perhaps 80 other innocent civilians when the suicide bombers inside the house emerge to carry out their strikes. Back in Nevada, Lt. Watts (Aaron Paul, Exodus: Gods and Kings) sweats at the controls as he alone will choose whether or not to press the button that may or may not kill the little girl. A man sweating even more than Watts is Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips), the eyes and ears on the ground maneuvering micro-drones into the house while trying to attract as little attention as possible.
There are a lot of moving parts here and a lot of stakeholders. Some advocate their positions relying on moral authority, some play the numbers game on total number of deaths, and some seek the best ‘cover your ass’ position lest something goes wrong. There will be no public trial for this British national everyone is targeting; this is a direct assassination. However, this death by drone may end up saving scores of innocents. No matter your opinion on these matters going into the film, you may find your thoughts altering a bit during the film with each different point of view. The respective military, political, and legal opinions clash and overlap and each one results in unacceptable risk; the death of suicide bombers and a little girl or the life of a little girl and bombers in the open.
Even though there are settings in four different continents, Eye in the Sky was filmed entirely in in and around Cape Town, South Africa. There is an arid, dusty market that would not be out of place in Nairobi, stale conference rooms, as well as the drone ground system which is pretty close to the real thing. Being a former Air Force guy, there are some noticeable errors, but nothing that will detract from the movie-goer’s understanding of the situation. However, the Reaper drone orbits. The video everyone in the film looks at is steady as if it is from a security camera; but the Reaper must move to remain aloft. Half the time, the video would be looking at the girl’s back instead of her face.
Gavin Hood is no stranger to filming in Africa; his first feature film was 2005’s breakout hit Tsotsi. Hood followed this with some complex but ultimately lackluster blockbusters including X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Ender’s Game. Eye in the Sky is not a war movie. It’s a philosophical and ethical exercise. It’s also Alan Rickman’s last film on screen; although, he has some voice work in films still on the way. Put it all together and Eye in the Sky is a very good time at the movies. I was anxious the whole way through and reminded there are no easy answers in this business.
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