Its hard to believe that a government that practices remote control warfare using drones and smart bombs can’t hack an iPhone.
But ‘Eye In the Sky,” opening Friday, is less about the existence of such technologies than the morality of wielding of them.
It is about specialists deciding what are acceptable limits of collateral damage and how to quantify it and facing a deadline for doing so.
For a single attack on a specific target in an African nation.
“All done from the safety of” their chairs.
For the hawks the equation is simple – eliminate the bad guys before they do more harm. I’d rather apologize for an mistake in battle, says one, than tell the public after a terrorist attack that we could have stopped it.
It is a British sortie – headed by Helen Mirren and the late Alan Rickman – using armed US drones. Using bug-sized transmitters they watch as the attack is prepared inside the terrorists’ lair.
But civilians in the vicinity, especially a little girl selling bread right outside, changes acceptable mathematical parameters within which the military is authorized to act.
So the ball is kicked upstairs to politicians, bureaucrats and lawyers on multiple continents, from a British official with stomach flu at an arms fair to a US official playing table tennis in China.
A US military base in Hawaii uses facial recognition software to confirm the identity of the targets.
Barkhad Abdi, of “Captain Phillips,” is the human intelligence in jeopardy on the ground. And Aaron Paul is the US military grunt with his finger on the joystick will launch the missiles if there is mission clearance.
What could possibly go wrong?
What sounds wonky, in a film by Gavin Hood, South African diretor of “Tsotsi” and “Rendition,” is actually taut human drama. It uses the ticking clock elements of “24” and the tradecraft of “Homeland” to demonstrate that all the technology that money can buy is still vulnerable to strategic and human error.
***1/2 Three and one half stars
With Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Aaron Paul, Barkhad Abdi, Babou Ceesay, Phoebe Fox, Gavin Hood, Monica Dolan, Jeremy Northam.
Produced by Ged Doherty, David Lancaster. Written by Guy Hibbert. Directed by Gavin Hood.
Rated R: violent images
Approximate running time: 102 minutes.
Tags: Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, drone, Eye In The Sky, Gavin Hood, Helen Mirren, terrorism, warfare Posted by