Eye in the Sky
A well paced, intellectually intriguing thriller.
This month marks a bit of a change for Outline magazine, as my lovely Editor is now letting me pick what film I think is worth writing about this month – hurrah! Good news for you guys, because I’m always right, but for those of you who like it when I slag off films with such phrases as “if this film were a horse, I’d take it out back and shoot it in the head”, fear not, I’ll still be giving my brutally honest opinions of the latest movies on the website.
So, my pick of the bunch for April is the mili-thriller Eye in the Sky. Starring Dame Helen Mirren (The Queen) as Col. Katherine Powell, a military officer in charge of a top secret mission to help capture terrorists in Kenya. Now, initially at least, her role is more remote drone surveillance and intel, but Kenya believe it (sorry), the plot thickens when she discovers that the bad guys aren’t just a little bit bad, but are proper bad, and are currently plotting a suicide bombing. With this in mind, the mission priority is upped, and suddenly Dame Mirren is licenced to kill the bad guys with a drone strike. However, just as American pilot Steve Watts played by Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) is about to engage the targets, a nine-year old girl enters the kill zone, which puts the whole situation into a quandary of ethics, morals and military protocol which reaches the giddiest of giddy heights of both the US and British governments.
So, exciting stuff then, and not unfamiliar territory for director Gavin Hood, whose previous movie, Rendition, also dealt with the dark side of national security in a world of flexible morality and boundaries. Is it any good? Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you… oh, alright then. Early intel indicates that this well paced, intellectually intriguing thriller is definitely one to watch. You want more evidence? Well, I was saving this for last. It’s got Alan Rickman in it – Boom!
