Eye In The Sky was a bit of a quandary for me. I thought it was going to annoy me or inflame me as a ham-handed liberal screed against the military from people who have never worn a uniform and just love to point fingers. In a time with a President who increasingly prefers to use targeted attacks with drones, this movie and its implications are quite relevant to the current environment.
The movie seeks to explore the morality of push-button wars, where people can be killed by remote control thousands of miles away. It opens up with a family living in a terrorist-controlled neighborhood in Kenya. There is a joint US/UK drone mission to kill a known terrorist with a combat drone circling overhead. At first, we see the family life of a mother, father and daughter and the father's attempt to raise and teach his daughter against the conservative Muslim terrorists that occupy the neighborhood. The joint mission finds a particular terrorist in a building with suicide vests and bombers that are being prepared for an imminent attack. Just before the house is to be leveled by the drone, the little girl shows up selling bread in front of the house and will surely be killed in the blast. What follows is a discussion on whether the strike should proceed that leads to the highest levels of the US and UK governments: Do you blow up a building, surely killing men that will kill scores of others as well as an innocent girl, or do you hold off?
This movie is surprisingly egalitarian in its treatment of both the military and civilian leadership. It explores the motives behind all decisions that are made, including, but not limited to: legal authority to launch, legal culpability of the operation, public backlash, idealism versus pragmatism; and none of them are treated flippantly. All are given equal measure, and depending on what side of the argument you fall on, you will be at times furious and others cheering. But for me personally, the central question is this: All war is horrible. Why should it make a difference whether you know the victim or not? By focusing on the little girl, the movie does an amazing thing which often gets whitewashed even today. It makes you look at the tragedy of war up close by personalizing it with the little girl. You now have a stake in this, and it makes you sick to contemplate her fate. But this is the problem with how we are fed war and violence in today's media. Too often we are presented sanitized versions of war, from Hollywood showing bloodless battles to CNN blurring out beheaded or blown apart bodies. War becomes vainglorious, even fun with this depiction, and it does the public a great disservice. War is gruesome, bloody, horrible and destroys everything it touches. That is why it should be considered a last resort, not the first, second or third. Lest one think I am a peacenik dove, I'm not. There are things worth fighting for, killing for, and dying for. But war is not an endeavor to be entered lightly, and when it is, it must be swift and brutal. This movie leaves you with this question: In the end, is it worth it?
Every performance in this movie is stellar, and the movie is a fitting coda to Alan Rickman's career, who died not long after this film was made. This movie will make you think, and will challenge you. A truly adult film that can be savored and debated for days after.
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