Eye in the Sky

If Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge takes an up-close look at the unflinching brutality of trench warfare, Eye in the Sky examines the more modern detachment to battle while debating the morality of this kind of war. Centered around a proposed (and much debated) drone strike, director Gavin Hood's film offers us bureaucracy rather than a high body count and the age-old moral dilemma of just how much a single life is worth.

Pulling in characters from multiple countries, the story itself boils down to Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren), her mission to take down high-valued terrorist targets, and how politics, bureaucracy, and a local girl (Aisha Takow) selling bread inside the target zone threaten to derail her plans. While Powell is steadfast in the mission, others spend the movie debating the merits of their actions along with the legal and moral implications (to such an extent the movie feels at times more like a treatise on drone warfare than a film).

While offering an intriguing idea, the script struggles to keep tension in what is essentially a game of passing the buck. I also think screenwriter Guy Hibbert gives his characters a bit too much indecisiveness given the stakes (even before the little girl's appearance). Other than the Americans (only shown in cameos) everyone else comes of rather unsure and unprepared (as if somehow they all seem to be doing this for the first time. Was their a coup in Great Britain no one told me about?). Available on both Blu-ray and DVD, extras include two short featurettes on the characters of the film and the moral question deliberated.

[Universal Studios Home Entertainment, $22.98]