– By Cate Marquis –
Thought-provoking drone thriller ‘Eye In The Sky’ hits all targets
Gavin Hood showed a talent for handling complex issues with brilliant skill in “Tsotsie,” a film about a small-time thug that was both a thriller and a balanced exploration of the intersection of crime, poverty and AIDS in South Africa’s slums. Now the South African director brings that knack for taut thrillers with nuance, balance and humanity to the morally murky subject of drone warfare, in “Eye In The Sky.”
Hood takes a neutral tone in this gripping thriller, where a joint British and American mission to capture a British national, who has become an Islamic terrorist leader in Kenyan, is complicated when their remote surveillance, the “eye in the sky,” reveals a suicide bomber mission in progress. The unexpected discovery seems to change the mission from capture to kill, but that decision is debated between politicians, diplomats, military leaders across international lines, in a tension-filled drama with the soldiers at the drone controls buffeted by their own feelings. The suicide bomber plot starts a countdown and window to take action but the decision is further complicated by the appearance of a young girl (Aisha Takow) in the kill zone.
Drone warfare has allowed soldiers to kill enemies from great distance while eliminating the risk of being on the battlefield, and has sparked myriad moral questions. In this film, Hood explores some of those questions, through the eyes of the human beings involved. At the same time, “Eye In The Sky” is a top-notch thriller, with all the tension and rawness needed to keep audiences riveted and nail-biting.
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