Eye In The Sky * * * 1/2

You know that tense moment in films when the finger is on the trigger and you can’t be sure if he’s going to pull it or not?

Well, that’s pretty well what Eye In The Sky is. Finger on the trigger for 100 minutes.  Does it work?  In the main yes it does.  Primarily because there is an innocent victim in the line of fire.

As its title suggest Eye In The Sky is about new technology warfare - drones.  But it’s not a gung ho war film.  It’s quite serious with complex moral issues. It’s a very talky film which is probably why it is on at the Art House venues rather than your multiplexes. Though the technology displayed in regard to the Drones themselves would please most people who would rather see glamour as opposed to reality. Maybe I’m showing my ignorance (what’s new?) but I find it hard to believe that this Eye In The Sky team would have drones that look like birds and insects which they can fly into your house to spy on you, relaying images more perfect than I can get from a Blu Ray disc, not to mention the ability to analyse probability of fatalities and wounding from the images relayed.

But if you put aside the dubious whizz bang gadgetry we are still left with a powerful drama of moral dilemma that is well played.

Basically there are a bunch of terrorists in a house in Nairobi trying on their new suicide vests and being dead keen to wear them to the nearest shopping centre to try them out.  Meanwhile the Eye In The Sky team are watching them from England and America with their little bugs and stuff, whilst overhead they have a big drone flying which has weaponry that can “take them out”.   But just outside the house where the terrorists live sits a little girl that just won’t move.  The clock is ticking.  If they don’t take out the terrorists they're going to the mall - and they have no plans for lunch and shopping.   But that little girl stays in the way.  Would you sacrifice her to save the many?

Helen Mirren seems inappropriately cast as head of the British Command but she does okay, so does Alan Rickman in probably his last role.   Barkhad Abdi (he was the pirate in Captain Phillips) is the man on the ground.  Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad’s Jesse) is mightily impressive as the man who has to pull the trigger