Eye in the Sky (2016)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on March 23, 2016 @ tonymacklin.net.

For those people that want to see pilots of drones cry, Eye in the Sky is for you.

Tears fill the eyes of the two pilots and trickle down their cheeks.

Eye in the Sky suffers from the kitten-in-the tree syndrome. It rigs its case on the sentimental side.

A drone strike on a house in Nairobi that three top terrorists inhabit is delayed because one child is threatened by the potential deadly strike.

In the targeted house's vicinity, a nine-year old girl (Aisha Takow) sets up her stand to sell bread. What to do?

At home she even plays with a hula hoop. What could be more engaging?

Surveillance shows that in the house the terrorists are preparing a suicide vest that could kill a multitude of people. Lip service is paid to the calculation that more than 80 people will be the victims.

Imagine it is set off in a mall with families or a school with 80 children in it.

But remember the young girl plays with a hula hoop.

One versus 80? That's a really tough choice. That is the attitude of Eye in the Sky. But the more we think about it, the less credible the film becomes. Imagine if it were from the point of view of the 80.

Eye in the Sky disregards the 80. They'd get in the way. Instead it focuses on the question of will they or won't they save the girl?

Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) is calling the shots. But she's limited by her superiors. Her commanding officer Lt. General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) is meeting with a group of government authorities in a room in London to arrive at a decision. As a military man, he wants to go ahead. But he too needs clearance. He has to get the go-ahead from a government official (Jeremy Northam), but that official needs clearance from another official elsewhere who then wants clearance from the Prime Minister

Also present in London is the balky Undersecretary of African Affairs (Monica Dolan), who is a drone herself.

Even the Americans have to ok the strike; the pilots are operating the drones from Nevada.

The British Foreign Secretary and the American Foreign Secretary also have to have their say. The Englishman is seen on the toilet, and the American is playing ping-pong in China. Why not have them play ping-pong on the toilet?

The screenwriter Guy Hibbert (who wrote the television movie, Who Gets the Dog?, 2007) and director Gavin Hood (Ender's Game, 2013) juggle the themes of avoiding accountability, collateral damage, politics, and propaganda. Some get lost behind the green screen.

A partially-gifted cast tries its best. Helen Mirren and the late Alan Rickman are old pros who improve whatever they're in. Mirren gives the intelligence specialist a dose of gritty purposefulness. Rickman brings his unique brand of muddled, wry dignity to his role as the Lt. General.

But the others are essentially one-dimensional, with one basic expression. Jeremy Northam looks as though he is in distress. Monica Dolan has a blank look. Aaron Paul is a figure of assaulted innocence, and the other drone pilot Phoebe Fox is generic.

Eye in the Sky simplifies potential complexity. Maybe it fits today's sensibility. Now is a time when the two leading American presidential candidates lack principle.

Eye in the Sky seems like a soft-soap television commercial, pretending complexity but offering little. It's contrived.

At the beginning of Eye in the Sky, the words of Aeschylus, the ancient Greek, appear on the screen, "In war, truth is the first casualty."

Did Aeschylus see Eye in the Sky?