Review: Eye In The Sky directed by Gavin Hood

The cosy relationship between the film industry and the military-industrial complex was brought into sharp relief by the revelation that the producers of Zero Dark Thirty (2012) had showered CIA officials with expensive gifts in order to establish a working relationship with the Agency. But access comes at a cost: the implicit understanding that the film would not delve into the ethical dimensions of the Agency’s ‘enhanced interrogation program’. To many, it represented a new and troubling form of ’embedded filmmaking’. But for all the talk of ‘liberal Hollywood’, the film industry has never been chary about normalising current policy imperatives – a couple of years before Zero Dark Thirty, Gregor Jordan’s Unthinkable (2010) posited that torture could prevent a nuclear attack on the United States.

Granted, there have always been films with an avowed ‘anti-war’ stance, but even these largely cleave to the dominant narrative that we are fundamentally noble, in our intent if not our actions. Anyone in any doubt as to whether Hollywood functions as a de facto wing of the war machine need only recall the spike in U.S. Air Force recruitment numbers in the wake of Top Gun (1986); and Act of Valor (2012), which sought to manufacture this phenomenon by using actual active-duty U.S. Navy SEALS to star in its gung-ho, quasi-documentary actioner. The U.S. Navy was given final cut privileges.

Eye in the Sky takes on the latest phase in the War on Terror: drone warfare. Captain Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) commands a mission to capture a group of high-ranking Al-Shabaab terrorists meeting in a safe house in Nairobi. Powell co-ordinates the mission with USAF pilot Steve Watts (Aaron Paul), who controls a Reaper drone; and Kenyan field agent Jam Farah (Barkhad Abdi), who uses a variety of surveillance devices to monitor the safe house from the ground. Farah gains video access inside the safe house, and discovers that the terrorists are preparing to execute a suicide attack. The mission objective quickly changes from ‘capture’ to ‘kill’, but Powell is informed by her legal counsel that she must obtain the approval of her superior, Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman), before proceeding with a drone strike on the safe house. The decision to launch a missile attack against a friendly nation becomes politically contentious, and is further complicated by an unforeseen situation which underlines the consequences of executing the strike.

Director Gavin Hood has form in this realm, having previously helmed the honourably flawed Rendition (2007); but he and the heavyweight cast are hampered by Guy Hibbert’s script; which offers little in the way of geopolitical insight or interesting characterisation, and throws in moments of broad humour which fall decidedly flat. Early scenes are hamstrung by lots of sub-Bourne silliness, and Hood can’t quite shake off his awe for the cutting-edge military hardware on show. Characters are outlined with brief expository bursts and visual shorthand, reducing them to thumbnail sketches whose stories fail to gain emotional traction. There is no attempt to shed light on the wider situation in the Horn of Africa, or the radicalisation of Western Muslims, beyond a few glib explanations.

Mirren is rivalled only by Anthony Hopkins as an actor who has gotten by on the force of her charisma of late. She delivers an uneven performance that constitutes little more than a collection of gestures. But the fault may not lie entirely with Mirren; the writing is such that it is unclear if Powell is intended to elicit revulsion, or if her actions are intended to be perceived as heroic. This could be viewed as complexity, but feels more like confusion. It would be damming with faint praise to call this Paul’s best post-Breaking Bad performance, but he brings the same bruised bravado to the role. Monica Dolan is particularly impressive as a Claire Short-esque politician who provides the sole voice of reason; while Jeremy Northam and Richard McCabe are suitably slimy as the hand-wringing Foreign Secretary and Attorney General. If anything should serve to illustrate the dearth of opportunity for black actors, it is the fact that Abdi has not been deluged with offers since his sensational debut performance in Captain Phillips (2013), and he brings the same sense of authenticity here. In one of his final film roles, Rickman exudes the authority befitting the role, making it look effortless in the process and underlying how sorely his onscreen presence will be missed.

As timely as it is, Eye in the Sky is a conflicted piece, torn between a desire to espouse a nebulous liberal message and the need to present a nuts-and-bolts espionage thriller that will please a more zealous demographic. The end result is a farrago of gadgety set pieces, laboured info dumps and disquisitions on the practicalities of targeted assassination. To its credit, Eye in the Sky does belatedly skirt the periphery of the broader questions surrounding the ethics and efficacy of drone warfare, but by this time our emotions have been sufficiently tinkered with to ensure we are quite willing to see things in terms of ‘collateral damage’ and ‘shoot-to-kill’, and harrumph at the roadblocks of legal protocol. Politicians and lawyers are depicted as mealy-mouthed, prevaricating nitwits who bicker like children over points of international law while the uniformed adults watch on in disbelief.

As an international production, Eye in the Sky is not prey to the rigid orthodoxy that often attends U.S. fare, but it persists with the narrative that the most righteous path may require the occasional detour down some low roads; the enemy mute and glimpsed from above, the life that led them to their destiny only alluded to. As the reality of the targeted killing program becomes normalised in the public mind, Eye in the Sky could be the first of many films detailing the trauma of those tasked with raining down the hellfire. Like American Sniper (2014), Eye in the Sky is the lament of a sorrowful executioner.

Follow Daniel Palmer on Twitter at @mrdmpalmer.