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USD $1 ₱ 56.28 0.0000 March 27, 2024
March 26, 2024
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‘Eye in the Sky’ Studies How War is Waged Today

The film is a depiction of the way modern combat is done, which as it turns out, largely takes place inside rooms hundreds to thousands of miles away from actual danger.

Eye in the Sky is a film about a single decision. Col. Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) is heading up a mission looking for a British national that’s hooked up with a terrorist group working in Kenya. She finally gets a positive ID of the target inside a house in hostile territory. She’s got a drone flying overhead armed with hellfire missiles, piloted by American Steve Watts (Aaron Paul). With no way to capture the target, Powell orders a missile strike. But there is a young girl in the vicinity of the kill zone, and Watts questions the order.

What follows is basically a debate. The film is a depiction of the way modern combat is done, which as it turns out, largely takes place inside rooms hundreds to thousands of miles away from actual danger. The decision is passed up the chain of command, up to various government officials who have to consider the political fallout of such decisions, and are usually in the middle of doing something else. Meanwhile, on the ground, a young girl is selling some bread, unaware that her life is potentially in the hands of a bunch of people watching her on screens from far, far away.

What’s most intriguing about Eye in the Sky is that while it’s clear that it perceives the way warfare is done as inherently absurd, it doesn’t offer a strong moral stance with regards to the central decision made in the movie. It makes it a real dilemma. It asks the audience to do the moral calculations in their head as well, presenting the dire, morbid calculus that must take place in light of an emerging terrorist situation. It asks the question: is it worth saving the life of one girl, when inaction might mean the deaths of many others?

The movie is a little hard to pin down. There are comedic elements to this, such as the simple depiction of what the people in power might be up to while having to make the decision whether or not to strike. But one would hard pressed to call it a comedy. It isn’t exactly a thriller, either, and the characters aren’t really defined enough to make it a real drama. It is mostly a statement of fact: this is what happens these days. People stand around in rooms, talking to each other over the phones, making decisions about who lives and who dies.

This doesn’t always work, because the film plays it a little broad for such a matter-of-fact approach. The direction lays it on a bit too thick at times, the absurdities at play occasionally breaking away from a recognizable reality. But on the whole, the film paints a harrowing picture of the current reality of the war on terror. It makes the case that it isn’t necessarily right or wrong, but it does seem like there’s is no real winning in it. A great cast certainly helps things along. Helen Mirren makes a seemingly heartless side of the decision feel thoroughly believable. Alan Rickman, in one of his final performances, lends considerable humanity to an unsympathetic position. And Aaron Paul is well cast as a soldier reluctant to do his part. Also present is the terrific Barkhad Abdi, playing the one part of this operation that’s actually on the ground. One can’t ask for a finer cast than this.

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Eye in the Sky feels like it could have gone a little further in trying to make a point. The restraint is admirable, of course, and the complexity of the dilemma certainly warrants this kind of treatment. But at times it feels like the film risks little in its depiction, and risk tends to be a strong component of truly relevant commentary. Still, the film is reasonably compelling, and its simple depiction of war as it is now is full of merit. Even in consciously trying to not make a particular stand, the film still manages to say a whole lot.

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Eye In The Sky
Drama, Thriller, War
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