Eye in the Sky was a movie I literally knew nothing about going in. I never saw a trailer, and based on what I knew on nothing more than the title. I thought this would be a science fiction movie. It was by no means a science fiction movie. The best way to describe it is a war on terror movie that really focuses on how mission objectives and moral decisions are sometimes. In terms of movie comparisons, I would say it is American Sniper meets Lone Survivor meets Platoon meets Lions for Lambs meets 2015’s little known Good Kill (as a quick aside, I would suggest seeing this movie before seeing Eye in the Sky. You’ll learn more about drone missions. Eye in the Sky sort of expects you to know a little about these without really explaining them). That is certainly a lot to compare. Ironically, American Sniper meets Lone Survivor were my favorite movies of the year (2014 and 2013, respectively), while Platoon was my third favorite movie of 1986. I mention this because I was not the biggest fan of Eye in the Sky. I know that the movie has done really well with the critics (92% on Rotten Tomatoes), but I felt it was a little loose and not drawn to the story as well as I could of. This and the combination of a really clunky beginning while also being a movie shot mostly in real-time, and you have a movie that felt like it failed in more avenues than it succeeded in. With that said, this wasn’t a bad movie, and it got much better the further you got into it.
So who will like this movie? I certainly think if you like military movies (especially military strategy movies), you will appreciate this movie (it’s much easier to say that this is a movie that a person might be able to appreciate than it is to say that it would be something that they would enjoy. Also, if you like a movie about ethical decision-making and seeing those who people intent on influencing others through persuasion, manipulation of facts and figures, etc., then this might be your movie. There are other groups of people out there who will like this movie. I didn’t dislike it. I just didn’t love it. It was very much contrived to fit the confines of a 100-minute time frame, and this never really goes unnoticed. It doesn’t ever not feels like a movie. There is little chance to get to know each character and almost no chance to develop them. I never feel like I’m seeing Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren – The Debt, The Queen). Instead, I felt like I was just seeing Helen Mirren. Likewise, I never feel like I’m seeing Drone Pilot Steve Watts (television’s Breaking Bad, Need for Speed). Instead, I felt like I was just seeing Aaron Paul. That’s not to say that there wasn’t something more to these characters. It’s just that we didn’t get to see it. We learned nothing about them other than that they (as well as the other characters in the movie) were affected by difficult decisions that they were forced to make as part of their military jobs.
One of the main problems with this movie was the location. We are told where the various characters are located within the first couple of minutes of the film. But, honestly, I forgot. I could not remember which group was with which, who was working with who, and what the hierarchy was for decision-making. What DID make the most sense to me was the situation in Nairobi, Kenya. The secret mission involved here was to capture a terrorist group that was living in a safe house. This was strictly a capture situation. But through the use of a drone piloted by Watts and through a small metal fly/bug being controlled remotely from the ground by field agent Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi – Captain Phillips, The Brothers Grimsby), it is discovered that three of the five most wanted targets in East Africa are holed up in the same building and that they are arming themselves in suicide vests. Suddenly this joint task force between American and British forces becomes a kill mission rather than a capture mission. As the risk assessment is being calculated, it is clear that Colonel Powell is more of an end justifies the means individual than are many of the other agents, lawyers, and politicians in the movie. Plus, while Powell is the one calling the shots, she isn’t the one who is actually pulling the trigger. That responsibility falls in the hands of Watts. There are many complications in this mission, including what the task force knows, what it doesn’t know, how much time they can be afforded before a decision needs to be made, and one little girl selling bread who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There are many legal, technological, political, ethical, and moral implications in this movie. The first of those questions might be should we be using drones as military weapons at all. This is just the second movie (the first being Good Kill starring Ethan Hawke) that attempts to answer this question. Another dilemma in Eye in the Sky is the impossible task of valuing human life. If you could potentially save the lives of many by eliminating a handful of suicide bombers while no innocent people get killed, would you do it? While some would say no, many people would say yes in a heartbeat. What if you were presented with the same scenario with one little twist…you could potentially save the lives of many by eliminating a handful of suicide bombers…but…one innocent person (a child in this case) is killed in the process? Would you do it? For many, this is a far more difficult question. In Eye in the Sky, the joint task force is asked to do just that. You’ve got more characters than you know what to do with trying to influence Colonel Powell. She is a very strong character. She might actually be the strongest character in the movie, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she is the most honest or always has the right answers. Like all of us, she has a certain list of factors that she deems more important than others. And just like others are doing their best to influence her, she is trying her best to clout judgment of those trying to stop her from getting what she wants. Ultimately, all of the protagonists in the film want the same thing…they want the terrorists in the world to be eliminated while sparing all innocent life. Unfortunately, this is an unrealistic expectation, and thus it puts us in a huge area of grey.
As I mentioned, I didn’t think there was much character development in this movie. We learn nothing about what events and circumstances made these characters into who they are today. I want to say that both Miren and Paul gave good performances, but I just can’t. I am not saying that they gave poor performances because they certainly did not. This just wasn’t a character-driven movie. I did enjoy the field scenes in Nairobi, but the scenes in the two “war rooms,” if you will, were stale. I know that this was supposed to be tension-ridden, but it just wasn’t. The characters didn’t feel real to me. They felt like actors. Couple that with the fact that Carrie (Phoebe Fox – One Day, War Book), Watts’ co-pilot for the mission, is on her first day of the job, and it just doesn’t feel right. When these characters show emotion, we don’t. We don’t know them well enough to understand how these situations could influence them. Director Gavin Hood (Ender’s Game, X-Men Origins – Wolverine) approached this movie differently than I would have. It almost felt like a case study, that we would read in a law class, than it did a movie.
I think we are just at the beginning of movies that really focus on drones as military weapons. This could bring a lot of excitement to the cinema and opportunities for debate outside of it. Unfortunately, while some good things were happening in Eye in the Sky, it is not a movie I’d recommend seeing. It left me feeling frustrated and unfulfilled.
Plot 6/10
Character Development 4/10
Character Chemistry 5/10
Acting 6/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 5/10
Cinematography 8/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 7/10
Universal Relevance 9/10
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