Eye in the Sky

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Gavin Hood/Starring: Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Aaron Paul, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam and Phoebe Fox

The moments in war, when one becomes aware collateral damage will take a life or lives of non-combatants, must be truly horrific. High-ranking officers, generals, administrative personnel and soldiers are able to live with their decisions; knowing a hostile or potentially hostile target has been eliminated. For those with a conscience, liquidating an enemy at the cost of killing a child who has no role in a conflict or war; a child living in the Third World who is merely trying to cope with the hardships of survival--might give someone pause. But what if a military operation designed to eliminate suicide bombers--terrorists determined to kill a large number of people indiscriminately--also took the life of a young, innocent bystander; perhaps a little girl? The convoluted question has no easy answers. Such a confounding question is the focus of director Gavin Hood's brilliant, morally complex and gripping war drama Eye in the Sky; a film that is sure to stimulate reflection and discussion.

Hood's film shows us how a little girl selling bread could conceivably keep an operation in moral and bureaucratic gridlock; tying up military and civilian command personnel in a welter of indecision that is sure to make a movie-goer writhe in frustration.

Helen Mirren plays British Colonel Katherine Powell, who oversees a joint British/American operation involving Al Shabab militants, who are to gather in a Shabab-controlled neighborhood inside western-allied Kenya. Complicating the operation is the location, as Kenya is western-friendly territory. But another wrinkle are three of the operatives in Shabab's terrorist plot, which involve one British subject and two American citizens. While two of the western participants are young men who have joined Al Shabab's cause, an American woman married to a key member of the Islamic militant outfit is another target of the allied operation.

As an American drone provides aerial surveillance, the Kenyan special forces deploy an operative named Jama Farah (a terrific Barkhad Abdi; who played the Somali terrorist in Captain Phillips) on the ground , who controls tiny surveillance drones of his own.

After Farah infiltrates the Al-Shabab neighborhood, he deploys ingeniously-designed drones resembling a hummingbird and a small insect to spy on those inside the compound housing the terrorists. Drawing on drone-footage, Powell determines all the persons in question are accounted for, thereby designating the house a legitimate military target. With a phone link to the American drone pilots; Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) and Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox); who watch the live aerial footage from an Air-Force base in Nevada, Powell awaits approval from her superiors to issue an order to launch the drone's dreaded Hellfire missiles.

What might seem like a cut and dried operation becomes complicated when a young girl from the neighborhood surrounding the compound sets up a table outside the walls to sell bread. Reluctant to jeopardize the young girl's life, Powell's higher-ups, which include Lt. General Frank Benson (the late, great Alan Rickman; in one of his final roles), a government minister (Jeremy Northam), several government officials, including a legal adviser, all weigh the moral and legal impact of the little girl's almost certain death. While Powell and Benson support an immediate attack, the government officials are loathe to sacrifice the little girl's life. The cabinet's debate becomes testy, as Benson reminds the group that the terrorists are sure to kill an estimated 75-80 people in a crowded, public space if not eliminated, while the government officials refuse to give their consent, essentially adopting the role of the girl's advocates. Meanwhile, the possibility that the terrorists will leave the compound before a strike can be approved becomes the film's ticking-clock.

What is particularly fascinating about the story are the multiple points-of-view; Powell in her command center with her own personnel, who understand the operation's moral stickiness; Benson and government officials who preside god-like over the proceedings; Farah, who sits just outside the compound, and Watts and Gershon, who are entrusted to launch the missiles but who are no less reluctant to kill a little girl to achieve a military objective.

Guy Hibbert's fiendishly sharp screenplay piles on the tension but also the frustration as the order to launch is volleyed back and forth through British and American channels, causing everyone to defer or delay a decision or refuse to accept accountability for making one. The situation becomes comical when Benson's group contacts a British official in Malaysia, who suffers from a gastrointestinal problem, for approval. Citing the troublesome problem of two of the targets being American, the group also seeks permission from an American government official to proceed with the attack, only to be given his peevish consent with his why-are-you-wasting-my-time-with-this attitude. The maddening vacillations between military and governmental personnel become acutely frustrating, as entanglements mount.

But we the audience are also asked to make a decision; to consider what the character's must, thereby making us passively complicit. For Benson and Powell, two soldiers, only one course of action is possible; sacrificing one to save many. Though Benson and Powell's objective is hardly wrong, it is also not right. In an intelligently-written story such as this, no one individual is right or wrong. But in the final half-hour of the film, after Powell orders a second strike upon the compound to ensure the American woman has been eliminated, we're asked as an audience to weigh the expedience of her decision. The sight of mangled and severed limbs of the those killed in the compound leave an indelible impression. Even Farah, a mere Somali operative for the Kenyan military, sees the gravity and the fallout of his participation in the operation. No one is left unscathed or untouched by the attack; particularly Watts and Gershon, whose emotional response to carrying out their orders is one of the film's most poignant moments. One of the final scenes in the film show Benson being handed a bag with a toy which he asked an aide to exchange for another he mistakenly bought earlier in the film. The toy attains a tragic significance; we know the recipient is most likely a privileged child that doesn't have to sell bread on a street to survive and will most likely never be the target of a drone. A thoughtful and powerful statement in a film spilling over with them.

What is critical in a film with multiple points-of-view is keeping the story coherent and the characters relevant. Hood's unerring direction ensures every thread connecting numerous characters to the main story sidesteps extraneousness. Every character is crucial to the narrative.

Though the acting is superlative throughout, it is difficult not to see Helen Mirren's performance as the film's centerpiece. Though Powell obsessively pursues her objective and is willing to go as far as fudging collateral damage calculations to ensure the Hellfires are launched, it would be wrong to say she is completely indifferent to the little girl's welfare. Though Powell is ultimately the agent of death and destruction, Mirren makes her a sympathetic figure.

It is fascinating to consider the drama surrounding the little girl and how much suspense is teased from whether she fails or succeeds at selling her bread. It is disconcerting to think that so many people--a chain of personnel with god-like powers--are trusted with the decision as to who lives or dies.

Whether Hood intended to or not, we see military and governmental personnel, as well as soldiers, give their actions due reflection, which contrast sharply with those of the terrorists, who would most likely not consider the well-being of a little girl when they detonate their bombs. One group exercises discrimination, calculates collateral damage, while the other concerns itself not with who, but how many.

I think Eye in the Sky is one of the first truly terrific films of the year. It is thoughtful, thought-provoking, and a helluva of a nail-biter.