'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-
