Editor’s Notes: Eye in the Sky is currently out in limited theatrical release.
Drones have been topics of controversy for quite a while, and they should be, as should any advancement in warfare. There are many questions that deserve presenting, like whether it’s fair for a human life to be ended from behind a computer screen, and there have been plenty of films to tackle such moral debates. Even superhero films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier have addressed them at points, but it’s a whole different beast when they’re the primary subjects at hand. For example, Good Kill was released in 2014, starring Ethan Hawke as a drone pilot, psychologically tormented by his job. The inherent problem with films like these is who they choose to allocate focus to, asking us to empathize more with the one pulling the trigger than the ones under fire (American Sniper, for example).
Gavin Hood’s Eye in the Sky goes about such an issue in a strange, but refreshing, oddly smart way.
With this in mind, Gavin Hood’s Eye in the Sky goes about such an issue in a strange, but refreshing, oddly smart way. It’s about not just drone pilots, but several members of the government all coming together to capture targets in Kenya with the assistance of drone surveillance. While this operation is carried out, we soon find their targets meeting with a group of suicide bombers, as they put together bomb vests in a house centralized in a populated area. Suddenly, the several parties all collaborating to see this operation through have several moral questions thrust upon them, like whether to terminate the targets, what the ramifications might be, and eventually whether innocent civilians in the crossfire are worth risking the targets for. If not stopped, these bombers will potentially kill hundreds, and that possibility is what drives pilots to clash with colonels and generals to clash with Secretaries of State. The ensuing discussions and arguments slowly raise tensions, until the final, critical moments of their operation bring inevitabilities to the forefront.
Everything comes together in a fashion that may deter some, or simply bore others, but fascinated me with its unique, daring messiness.
Now, these arguments and debates that make up the runtime address relevant subjects, but they contain some strangely placed bits of comedy that don’t fit, at all. Some could see that choice as (in a film made by Americans about themselves presented with real issues) wrongly lightening its political stance with some lightness in tone. However, there’s something genuinely interesting within that weird, scattershot script. The film opens on a normal day in Kenya, following a normal family of civilians going about their morning. After the title screen, we cut to our various government officials/drone operators waking up and coming into work. Then, the operation begins, becomes complicated, and immediately tensions rise. At this point, our leads’ lives are chaotic, always-changing floods of moral ambiguity and bickering. Yet, while all of this occurs, that same Kenyan family is still having a normal day, going about it completely oblivious but completely… normal. They’re not looking up into the sky, scared, defined by the omnipresent meddling of other countries. They’re portrayed as they should be, as real people with habits and traditions.
It’s the Americans and the British overseeing their own operation who are a mixed bunch of hotheaded and justified folk, unable to agree on a thing. It’s like they’re a dysfunctional family, and so Eye in the Sky is, in a way, satirizing these people. But it’s not mean-spirited, because when a final decision is finally made, all parties involved abandon their opinions, quit their squabbles, and desperately hope for the best possible outcome. It’s an odd, but poetic finale that sees different people and different minds all sharing one common goal. In the meantime, Gavin Hood directs all of this very well, and watching the cast interact with one another (including Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, and Alan Rickman, may he rest in peace) is highly engaging. Everything comes together in a fashion that may deter some, or simply bore others, but fascinated me with its unique, daring messiness.
Eye in the Sky is certainly flawed, but a good kind of flawed, and makes for a final product with a lot to offer.
Eye in the Sky is certainly flawed, but a good kind of flawed, and makes for a final product with a lot to offer.
