THE DUKE : Monday 2nd May 2022.

I saw the M Rated British comedy drama film 'THE DUKE' earlier this week, which is Directed by the late Roger Michell who died in late September last year, and whose previous film making credits took in 'Notting Hill' in 1999, 'Changing Lanes' in 2002, 'Venus' in 2006, 'Hyde Park on Hudson' in 2012, 'Le Week-end' in 2013, 'My Cousin Rachel' in 2017, 'Blackbird' in 2019 and the recently released documentary on the life of Queen Elizabeth II 'Elizabeth : A Portrait in Part(s)'. The film saw its World Premier screening at the September 2020 Venice Film Festival and was originally slated for an early November 2020 release in the UK before being pulled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. It was then scheduled to an early September 2021 release before being pushed back again to a late February date in 2022 in the UK and a 31st March date here in Australia. It has so far taken US$11M at the Box Office and garnered positive critical acclaim. 

The film opens up with Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) standing in the dock in an Old Bailey courtroom accused of stealing the famed portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Francisco Goya, and its frame from London's National Gallery in 1961. He pleads not guilty. We then back track six months to the spring of 1961 and from his home in Newcastle upon Tyne Kempton sends a script for a play he has written to the BBC. Following this the Television licensing authorities knock on Kempton's door demanding to see his TV license. Kempton responds saying that he has removed the tube from the back of the TV set which transmits the BBC signal, and as he is unable to watch the BBC he does not need a license. Although he can afford a TV license, he refuses to do so as part of his campaign against old age pensioners having to pay for it, which is all part of his wider strong socialist beliefs about supporting the common man.

He is then jailed for thirteen days in Durham, and upon his release he is collected by his son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead). On their way home they make a detour to visit the grave of Marion, Jackie's sister, who was killed in a bicycle accident aged only eighteen. Kempton's wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren) works as a housekeeper and babysitter for a local councillor and his wife (Anna Maxwell Martin), Jackie aims to become a boat builder and move away to California, or New Zealand or Australia, and his elder brother Kenny (Jack Bandeira) lives in Leeds, working in construction but also involved in petty crime. Kempton himself is sacked from his job as a taxi driver for being over-talkative to passengers and for giving a free ride to an impoverished disabled WWI veteran. Dorothy is sick and tired of her husbands relentless campaigning and crusades for the common man, but she reluctantly allows his to make one last trip down to London for two days to drum up press and parliamentary attention for his campaign and BBC interest in his scripts, on the condition that if he does not get that attention he will give up writing and campaigning and get a real job.

Next up we see an unseen man climbing up a ladder and entering the National Gallery via a toilet block. He sneaks around the dimly lit corridors in the dead of night, and promptly removes the painting of the Duke of Wellington. When Kempton returns from London to his home, he is seen bending over the portrait saying 'it's not very good, is it?' to Jackie. He and Jackie then make a false back to the wardrobe in which to hide the portrait from Dorothy and Kenny. Kempton then sends a number of ransom notes to the government, proclaiming that he'll return the painting on the condition that the elderly be exempted from paying for a TV licence. 

Kenny and his separated lover Pammy (Charlotte Spencer) come to visit his parents and she notices the painting in the wardrobe after snooping around. She reveals this to Kempton in private and threatens to blackmail him unless she gets half of the £5,000 reward on offer. Panicked, Kempton goes home and begins to wrap up the painting in brown paper when in walks Dorothy to the room. She is perplexed and angry at Kempton for stealing the portrait and lying to her and orders him out of the house. Kempton then walks into the National Gallery in the middle of the day and returns the painting to the nearest security guard and confesses to the theft.

The case against Kempton seems destined to go against him, but his barrister Jeremy Hutchinson (Matthew Goode) defends him on the basis that he did not intend to deprive the National Gallery of it permanently, but instead simply 'borrowed' it to further his campaign, an impression Kempton backs up by a verbose testimony under cross-examination by Hutchinson at the end of the trial, and which causes much hilarity amongst the jurists, the other barristers in attendance and the members of the public gathered in the gallery up above looking on.

During the early stages of the trial, which is widely reported on the TV news, Jackie confesses to his mother that it had in fact been him who stole it for his father to use in his campaign, with his father covering up for him and taking the blame. Soon afterwards the jury acquits Kempton of all charges except the theft of the £80 picture frame, which Jackie had removed from the painting at his London lodgings, placed under his bed, forgot about it and then subsequently lost. After his three-month sentence, Dorothy is waiting for Kempton outside the gates of Durham Prison. He and Dorothy forgive each other over how they had mishandled their grief at Marion's death, after she read his draft of a play he had written titled 'Girl on a Bicycle'. 

Four years later Jackie admits his guilt to the Police, but the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police Joe Simpson (Charles Edwards) and the Director of Public Prosecutions fear that a new trial could lead to Kempton being called as a witness and again becoming an embarrassing case of widespread public interest. They therefore agree that if Jackie does not go public they will not prosecute. Jackie elated by this news, on the spot proposes to his long term girlfriend Irene (Aimee Kelly) who accepts instantly. 

Before the end credits roll, text states that the frame was never recovered, that no plays by Bunton were ever produced, and that in 2000 TV licences were made free to those over 75 years of age.

In his final feature film outing here Director Roger Michell has crafted a fine retelling of the only art theft in the National Gallery's history that is underpinned by exemplary performances by its two lead Actors - Broadbent and Mirren. Make no mistake this is a typically British story that only the Brits can make and that Hollywood has long since forgotten how to make. It's a tale of the little man rising up against a society that would otherwise crush him, of racial prejudice, of social inequality, of marital woes, of lies and deceit, but one that offers up hope, redemption and forgiveness. It's a feel good family movie, a real crowd pleaser and a throw back to the Ealing comedies of yesteryear, and there ain't nothing wrong with that!

'The Duke' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE GOOD LIAR : Tuesday 17th December 2019.

I saw 'THE GOOD LIAR' earlier this week, which is an MA15+ rated American crime thriller and is Directed and Co-Produced by the Oscar winning Bill Condon whose previous Directing credits take in the likes of 1987's 'Sister, Sister' (his debut feature film), 1998's 'Gods and Monsters', 2004's 'Kinsey', 2006's 'Dreamgirls', 'The Twilight Saga : Breaking Dawn - Parts 1 and 2', 2013's 'The Fifth Estate', 2015's 'Mr. Holmes' and 2017's Disney's live action remake of 'Beauty and the Beast'. Here Condon collaborates with Sir Ian McKellen for the third time in the male leading role opposite female lead Helen Mirren. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Searle, was released in the UK in early November, in the US in mid-November, and in Australian cinemas at the end of November having taken US$28M off the back of a Production Budget of US$10M, and has garnered mixed or average Reviews along the way so far.

The film opens up with two unconnected ageing people keying in their personal details, likes and dislikes into the same online dating service. It is 2009. Sometime later and a connection has been made, a remote relationship has been established and a rapport has been built. The next step is to meet in person, face to face, and so a date is set over dinner. Here we are introduced to Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellen) and Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) who have enjoyed a successful first lunch date, during which we learn that Roy's wife passed away three years ago and Betty's husband one year ago. Upon exiting the restaurant, Betty is picked up by her grandson Steven (Russell Tovey) and Roy says he'll catch a train back to his apartment in the city. When Betty is out of view, Roy's friend and colleague Vincent (Jim Carter) picks him up and they drive off together.

As it turns out we quickly discover that Roy is in fact a long term conman who has a successful track record in convincing people to part company with their money off the back of some financial investment scam through deception, creating fake identities and misinformation. Betty is a former Oxford Professor, who has an accumulated wealth of 2.7 million pounds sterling, and as such Roy is practically salivating at the prospect of these easy pickings.

Having spent a day together, Roy puts on a convincing act that he has a dodgy knee, and can barely make it up the stairs to his apartment. Betty takes pity and encourages Roy to stay at her place in the spare room, much to Steven's chagrin, and Betty's disapproval of Steven's mistrust of Roy.

Meanwhile, Roy and Vincent run an investment scam with their mark Bryn (Mark Lewis Jones) and his partner Beni (Lucian Msamati) - using fake Russian investors to part company with UK£800K while the other four each put in a combined UK£200K. The fake Russians however, reneg on the deal as a result of a comment made by Bryn, setting up another meeting at a later date in which Bryn apologises and the four agree to up their investment from UK£50K each to UK£100K as a gesture of their commitment. After the funds are transferred via a sharing of accounts using keypads connected to a bank, and the group are about to toast their success, the meeting is raided by Police leaving Bryn and his colleague to flee the scene. The Police raid is revealed to also be a scam, leaving the group to share the spoils of a UK£200K confidence trick.

One day later on when Roy has seemingly taken up permanent residence in Betty's house, she collapses from a mini-stroke. Her Doctor pays a house visit and says she needs to take it easy, and having suffered a series of these mini-strokes over time, needs bed rest or she could possibly be dead within a year. To aid her recovery, Betty suggests a European holiday taking in Berlin, France and Italy, but kicking off in Berlin. Roy eventually agrees. During the trip, during which time Steven is studying in Berlin and acts as their surrogate tour guide, he speaks in German which Roy seems to understand - and then claims ignorance. Steven takes the couple to a flat that Roy instantly recognises although doesn't let on, and reveals that 'Roy Courtnay' was a young British Army officer who was killed there in 1948 by a Nazi war criminal he was tracking, according to Soviet records. This causes Roy to explain that his real name is/was Hans Taub (Laurie Davisdon), who was Roy's German translator, and that he stole Roy's identity so that he could leave Germany and pass himself off as a British citizen. Betty appears to accept his explanation and dismisses Steven's objections.

Whilst in Berlin, one afternoon when Roy is feeling tired, Betty takes her leave and goes off exploring alone. We see here walk up to an old looking house, that is now a library. Upon her return to the hotel she reveals cuts and grazes to her hands where she seemingly took a fall on a gravel pathway. Roy attended to her bloodied hands, and they agree to return home to England ending their holiday prematurely.

For a while now Roy has been attempting to convince Betty that she should invest some of her money into a sure fire double your money offshore trading account, so that he can secretly scam her out of her life savings. Vincent has been masquerading as Roy's financial advisor and has had several meetings to establish the scam at Betty's home. After returning from Berlin, Roy and Betty plan to transfer their money and to pool their resources into an offshore joint account as recommended by Vincent. Vincent, on the eve of the transfer, suggests to Roy that he should leave at least some of the money for Betty to help with her medical condition, but Roy dismisses the idea and insists that he'll leave Betty financially defrauded just like his previous victims. Vincent reluctantly agrees and the next day bears witness to the couple transferring their money into the joint offshore account, totalling in excess of UK£5M.

As they celebrate their financial union over a glass of champagne, Roy takes a message from his son Robert who is attending a trade fair in London from his home in Australia, and wants to meet with his dad later that evening for dinner. Roy is estranged from his son, disapproving of his lifestyle and the fact that he designs kitchens for a living, but agrees to go and meet his son.

Betty sees Roy off at the train station, and he goes to his apartment and polishes off a bottle of Scotch, with no sign of his son Robert, whom we've worked out by now doesn't really exist. Roy discovers that he no longer has the keypad needed to access their joint account and that he must have left it at Betty's house. He calls the bank seeking to have the funds transferred to another account, but is told that the only way of transferring funds securely is via the keypad, and that the bank will happily dispatch a new keypad but that will take three days to arrive at least. By now Roy is panicking. Roy returns to Betty's house to reclaim it, only to find that the house has been stripped bare of all fixtures and furnishings and Betty waiting for him in a lone armchair in the lounge holding his lost keypad. Betty confronts Roy with the keypad by siphoning off UK£50K into her own private account each time he tells a lie, with the account balance declining rapidly before Roy's very eyes as the untruths come blurting out.

It is at this point that Betty reveals her history to Roy, that including her medical condition, is all fake. Her real name is Lili, and she and Roy have met six decades before as German teenagers in 1943 - when Hans was tutoring her in English. During their last session, however, the fifteen year old Hans raped Lili following a humiliating encounter with her three older sisters a short time earlier. After her parents dismissed Hans from continuing his tutoring lessons, he denounced Lili's father to the German authorities as a traitor for which he was executed for treason - the result of which drove Lili's mother to commit suicide. Following the deaths of their parents, Lili's sisters were killed in an explosion just two weeks before the suicide of Adolf Hitler in a Berlin bunker. After these tragic events, Lili made her own way to England once the war had ended.

Lili goes onto explain that she has been fully aware of his plan to con her out of her savings all along, and how Steven, who is in fact the partner of Lili's real grandson Michael, is quite the private investigator and had managed to track Roy/Hans' criminal history, aided by Lili confirming his identity based on an old locket containing a snippet of Hans' hair and comparing the DNA to a cut of hair she took from Roy, when she was cutting his hair one time. Additionally, she reveals that Vincent had betrayed Roy after being confronted with her knowledge of their crimes, and how as a result, if reported to the authorities, he would languish in jail. A situation that Vincent was understandably keen to avoid. Roy begs for forgiveness and states how much he genuinely loves her. Having transferred all of Roy's money to her own account, Lili prepares to leave the house only for Roy to attack her after locking the door. She manages to ward him off just long enough for her to make a quick phone call alerting Beni and a colleague whom he previously cheated, who were waiting outside. Upon leaving the house, she says that she has left UK£100K in Roy's offshore account, which will reimburse the sum he swindled out of Beni, leaving Roy penniless. Roy is then heard being beaten up by the pair of men.

'The Good Liar' has a plot that is far too convoluted, too complicated and way too detailed to sit within the realms of anything resembling realistic, but is elevated by the noteworthy pairing of McKellen and Mirren whose simple and grounded riffing off each other provides for some moments of levity, emotion and depth that anchors the otherwise implausible cumbersome cat-and-mouse storyline. Ultimately it's a film about buried secrets, lies and deception, revenge and double-cross with moments of unexpected violence thrown in for good measure that for the most part is good fun, but, a far cry from the Hitchcock influences it attempts to emulate. Don't expect too much from this film, and you can easily wait for this one to come along on your small screen streaming service and save yourself the price of cinema entry.

'The Good Liar' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

WINCHESTER : Tuesday 27th February 2018.

'WINCHESTER' which I saw earlier this week is based on a true story and is a supernatural horror film as Directed by the Australian Spierig brothers - Michael and Peter - whose previous credits include their excellent 2014 film 'Predestination'. The 'Winchester' in question here refers to one Sarah Winchester who was the widow and recipient of her late husbands fortune - William Wirt Winchester - the firearm magnate of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 43 in 1881. After his death, Sarah rose to notoriety for building the property in San Jose, California, that came to be known as the Winchester Mystery House - a Queen Anne Style Victorian mansion that was/is renowned for its size, its architectural curiosities, and its lack of any master building plan. Since its construction began in 1884, the property and mansion were claimed by many to be haunted by the ghosts of those killed with Winchester rifles. Under Sarah Winchester's day-to-day guidance, its 'from-the-ground-up' construction proceeded around the clock, by some accounts, without interruption, until her death in early September 1922, at which time work immediately ceased. The house today stands as a tourist attraction, is privately owned, and is a Californian registered historical landmark. This film was made for a very modest US$3.5M and has so far grossed US$28M since its release Stateside early in February.

History lesson over and so to the film. Said to be the most haunted house in the world, the Winchester House sits on an isolated stretch of land that's about fifty miles outside of San Francisco on about 160 acres. Built by Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren starring in her first horror film in her illustrious forty+ year career) heiress to the Winchester fortune, it stands seven stories tall and contains some 160 rooms including forty bedrooms, two ballrooms as well as 47 fireplaces, over ten thousand panes of glass, seventeen chimneys, two basements and three elevators.

The Winchester company is fearful for Sarah's state of mind and her ability to run the company as a 51% shareholder who also inherited US$20M from her late husbands estate (a very tidy sum back in the late 19th Century). Sarah is in a state of self imposed grieving - for the loss of her husband some years earlier, and the loss of their young daughter previously. Having consulted a psychic, she set about building the mansion - a process which continues unabated 24/7 by a dedicated team of craftsmen round the clock, day in day out. To the casual outsider, it seems like a misplaced monument to a disturbed woman's madness. But Sarah is constructing a 'prison' for hundreds of vengeful ghosts and the most terrifying among them have a score to settle with this Winchester. She believes that the house is haunted by the wayward spirits, anxious apparitions, and cursed by the ghosts of those killed by a Winchester firearm.

The Directors of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company engage Doctor Eric Price (Jason Clarke) to assess Sarah's state of mind, paying him his asking price and doubling it, and seeking a written report quickly. Doctor Price has his own demons to contend with - he too is grieving the loss of his wife, and has become reliant upon a drug that he self prescribes. He drinks a lot too, and when we first make his acquaintance he is 'entertaining' four prostitutes in his San Francisco home. He takes the assignment and upon arriving at the Winchester House is met by Sarah's relative Marion Marriott (Sarah Snook) who lives in the house too with her son Henry (Finn Scicluna-O'Prey) who at night is possessed by a mysterious entity and witnesses strange goings on in his bedroom.

Initially Marion is sceptical of Price, and reinforces the strict rules of the household which he must uphold as long as he is in residence, to which he cordially agrees. That first evening while preparing for dinner, Price is startled by a ghostly vision which he attributes to the hallucinogenic effects of the drug he is taking. At dinner, Price meets Sarah for the first time with Marion and Henry in attendance too, overseen by an army of servants waiting on. Later that night Price goes for an exploratory walk, coming across a stairway down to a basement, where he comes face to face with a ghost crawling menacingly up the stairs towards him. He scrambles from whence he came, and goes outside for a breath of fresh air, again dismissing the whole incident. He is met by several craftsmen all busily building away and spies Henry in a translike state standing on a ledge two or three stories up, and then topple over. Price runs to him and breaks the young lads fall, which is witnessed by both Sarah and Marion.

The next day Price begins his assessment of Sarah's state of mind and her mental health. She admits to him her fear of ghosts, but firmly believes that she can help those troubled spirits move on to a better place. Again, later that night, Price goes walkabout throughout the house and comes across Sarah seemingly possessed scrawling away at a jotter pad with a pencil, drawing up plans for another room refurbishment. Again, he is startled by some kind of mysterious entity and makes a quick exit back to his bedroom.

The next day in conversation, Sarah reveals that in a bookcase she has volumes and volumes of records of those persons killed by a Winchester rifle, and Price's name is amongst them. It comes to light that Eric was actually killed by a Winchester rifle and was dead for three minutes before being revived. The bullet was extracted from his chest, and he had the casing refilled and resealed and the inscription 'Together Forever' engraved on the side. He keeps the bullet with him at all times as a reminder, and as a connection to the past, adds Sarah. Sarah also states that numerous rooms in the house are boarded up and secured with thirteen nails to keep the spirits locked securely away, but there is a particularly violent and troubled spirit that has manifested itself that she wants to help move on.

Later the day after, Price and Marion talk about the ghosts that Sarah believes in. Marion does not subscribe to her point of view, but while they talk, Henry, armed with a Winchester rifle secured from a newly refurbished room exhibiting every Winchester rifle type ever sold, goes on the rampage with the intent of shooting Sarah dead. He comes pretty close too, but is stopped from doing so, having fired several bullets, by Price and Marion. The spirit that possessed Henry leaves him, and at this point Sarah realises how violent this particular entity can be. Sarah dismisses her staff and is determined to confront the spirit herself and rid her home of it.

As Eric is calling for a doctor to treat Henry, he is confronted by a Butler. Later in conversation with Sarah it transpires that the Butler is in fact one Benjamin Brock (Eamon Farren) a confederate soldier whose two brothers were killed in the Civil War by Winchester rifles. Brock was so traumatised by his loss that he entered the Winchester Offices armed with a Winchester rifle and proceeded to shoot dead all the staff working at that time, before the Police arrived and shot him dead. Brock's spirit had been possessing Henry, and the newly refurbished display room replicated the Offices where Brock was gunned down by Police after his massacre of the employees there.

As Price and Sarah talk in the display room, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hits causing widespread devastation to the house and splitting the pair. Henry meanwhile has been possessed again by Brock and flees, chased by Marion who goes in search of her young son. Price gains access to the previously sealed off Garden Room (a place that the Winchester House has in common with his own home in San Francisco, hence the interest) and there he encounters the spirit of his dead wife Ruby. Here it is revealed that Ruby was mentally unstable and it was she who shot Price dead and then turned the Winchester rifle on herself. an act that is repeated here. Ruby's ghost comforts Price urging him to help Sarah. As Price regains consciousness he is confronted by a multitude of ghosts all staring down at him, pointing him in Sarah's direction.

While all this is going Marion has located Henry in the basement of the house where they are cornered by the spirits of Brock's two dead brothers. Price forces his way through the rubble of the house back into the display room where Sarah is located, and together they manage to trap the spirit of Brock in the room with them. Brock attempts to kill Sarah. The pair come to the realisation that Brock is afraid of the bullet that Price had retained, and furthermore this is what connects him to the spirits that he is now able to see. Price picks up the very rifle that Brock used in his massacre at the Winchester Offices, and loads his bullet into it. He takes aim, and fires, so banishing Brock from this world.

And so Price, Sarah, Marion and Henry are saved. Price later declares that Sarah is perfectly sane in his written report to the Winchester Board and therefore fit to retain control of her company. Upon leaving, Price and Sarah stand outside the house viewing the repair works already well under way to restore the home to its former glory, with the addition of still more rooms in which to help more wayward and lost spirits.

This is an interesting premise for a film, grounded, albeit loosely, in a turn of the century true story that promises so much, yet ultimately fails to deliver. The period is recreated reasonably faithfully, the films aesthetic looks convincing enough (apart from some questionable CGI shots but this is only a minor criticism), the performances from the three leads (Mirren, Clarke and Snook) are solid enough, and the dialogue is careful and considered throughout. But, despite a few jump scares this is a fairly standard by the numbers run 'o' the mill offering that provides little new that we haven't seen before in plenty of other similar haunted house movies. For a house offering a full labyrinth of rooms, corridors, hallways and staircases from which to truly imbue a story, we are offered a restricted view of only a small part of the mansion that is surely a missed opportunity to truly flesh out this tale of nether world entities. All this adds up to a film that urges to be taken seriously, but ultimately proves to be predictable, a little silly and tongue in cheek fun instead, and not particularly original.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

EYE IN THE SKY : Saturday 2nd April 2016.

'EYE IN THE SKY' which I saw last weekend is about as up to date a take on modern day drone warfare as your gonna get. Set with the backdrop of the Nairobi shopping centre terrorist attack back in 2013, this film is current, significant and very relevant as it dissects the cost of war, and the far reaching implications of it. Directed by Gavin Hood, Co-Produced by Colin Firth the film had a limited US release in early March after Premiering at the TIFF in early September last year, before a wider release elsewhere last week, and its UK release on 8th April. This film is also one of two films to be released starring Alan Rickman who died in January - the other being his voice work as Absolem, the Caterpillar in the May release of 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'.

As the film opens it is very early in the morning and military intelligence officer Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) wakes from her slumber and ventures to her office at home, adorned with several computer screens, intricately detailed pin board and the wherewithal to keep on top of her work even when she is not at it. Switching on her computer screens her intelligence tells her that numbers 2, 4 and 5 on West Africa's most wanted list will be together in a Kenyan safe house in a Nairobi township later that day - and one of these is a turned British citizen, a woman Susan Danford/Ayesha Al-Hady - whom Powell has been chasing down for six years.  She speaks with Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) and he wishes her luck today in finally capturing her quarry - all members of the al-Shabaab extremist group.

We next cut to Powell arriving at her underground bunker - her control centre, where she oversees the operation aided by several others all starring into their screens and looking down on the Nairobi house through an overhead drone capturing the necessary visuals in real time, and feeding back the necessary data for them to move in on their capture. At the onset this is to be a capture, coordinated on the ground by a crack team of trained Kenyan military aided by Jamah Farah (Barkhad Abdi) - a Kenyan undercover agent. In the US, the drone keeping watch on the safehouse is being piloted by Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) and Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox). Back in England, Benson assembles in a cabinet room with various political hierarchy to watch the proceedings unfold on another screen in real time, and untimely give the go/no go signal to those on the ground in Nairobi and those piloting the drone at a remote US Air Force base.

The scene is set and we quickly get thrust into the situation as it unfolds from the perspective of Powell controlling the operation, Benson in the command room with the necessary authorities to proceed, Watts piloting the drone which is the 'eye in the sky', and Farah on the ground and in the thick of it. With the use of a tiny flying remote controlled camera made to look like a dung beetle Farah sends his camera into the safe house when the assembled personalities have arrived, and from this are able to confirm the presence of the three most wanted, and various others. Inside the house the dung beetle camera comes to rest and those sat surveying the unfolding matters from far away can make an assessment of what to do next. Powell orders Farah to survey the rest of the house, and at this point it is revealed that two new recruits are being fitted up with suicide vests for an imminent attack.

This changes things dramatically, and so the order changes from capture to kill!  For Powell, she is black and white that they must now proceed with a 'hellfire' missile attack from the drone on the safe house, given that two terrorist suicide attacks could potentially take out 80 civilians or more. She seeks the necessary authority from Benson in his command centre who is also in full agreement, but needs the final word from those in the room that include the Home Secretary, legal representations and various other political seniors. They however, as less so inclined with the gung-ho approach of Benson & Powell and want to know the more far reaching impact of taking out the safehouse given its location on the edge of a market and a busy intersection within the township. All the while the tension mounts as Powell & Benson know full well that the clock is ticking on the Top 3 getting out of there, and the suicide bombers completing their preparations.

The powers that be in the room don't want to be faced with that decision, particularly when a nine year old girl living in the house next door ambles onto the street corner immediately outside the target zone to sell bread, that her mother has just baked. This presents a moral and very real dilemma of what to do now - risk one young innocent life to save eighty or so, or sacrifice a few to save many ultimately. The gathered authorities cannot make that call and procrastinate for seemingly hours while the whole situation unfolds in front of their eyes. They go back and forth with the arguments to proceed or not, finally bowing to the Foreign Secretary for advice, who suffering from a bout of food poisoning in his hotel room hand balls the situation to the US Secretary of State who is playing ping pong while on an official visit to China - a metaphor here perhaps for the matters at hand. As far as he is concerned it's a go, just do it, and why are the British even troubling him over such a matter.

And so the order is given with Watts piloting the drone and his finger on the trigger. He has never had to fire a shot in anger before let alone release a hellfire missile on a house taking out six highly wanted individuals, two suicide bombers and the potential collateral damage from it too on countless innocent bystanders, including potentially the young girl still selling her bread. He wavers and seeks another assessment of the potential kill zone, much to the chagrin of Powell, Benson and his commanding officer, although he does have the right. Only if there is less than a 50% chance that the girl will be killed will they strike, and so it is determined by Powell's assessor that there is a 45-65% chance - not good enough, reassess and make it 45% orders Powell. Needless to say the assessment comes back and a 45% risk factor is given, and so the order is confirmed for the strike.

With the trigger pulled it is an agonising fifty seconds before impact during which time the tension mounts further, as the young girl sells the last of her bread, packs up and moves off, but will she be clear in time? When the attack comes, it does so with devastating precision and in no uncertain terms. When the dust clears the eye in the sky zooms in to identify the bodies - or what is left of them - dismembered legs, arms, hands, feet are strewn across the rubble from the direct point of impact, but Susan Danford/Ayesha Al-Hady still moves. Powell's #1 target lives, and so she orders in quick succession another missile strike directly upon her - Watts pulls the trigger a second time and we wait another fifty seconds for impact. Meanwhile, the young girl was thrown well clear by the blast and lies motionless face down - her father come running, and then the mother. Their daughter lives but is badly injured. Within seconds the final missile makes impact.

This is a considered, thought provoking and relevant film that clearly demonstrates the power of technology upon modern war and the war on terror, and therefore is front & centre within our society today, and we see it every day on our own TV screens. It resonates on many levels, taking you inside the detached players that oversee, determine and execute such actions, all from afar and all in isolation to each other bound together only by a computer screen and a phone. In the final analysis is it best to sacrifice a few to save many as was the case as presented here, or the opposite? It is a moral & ethical dilemma that confronts the power brokers and those that serve militarily every day, while us sat in front of the TV at home with our cups of tea and going about our daily lives largely do so knowing that those decisions rest with someone else and we can sleep safe tonight . . . but at what cost ultimately? Perhaps it's better that we don't really know!

-Steve, at Odeon Online-