Movie: Eye in the Sky

Helen Mirren stars as no-nonsense Colonel Katherine Powell who has been tracking known terrorists in Kenya, of all places. This is the first film I’ve seen that fully depicts modern technology; with a drone that looks like a beetle, the Colonel’s one man on the ground manages to look inside the house they have convened in to find the terrorists are planning an imminent suicide bombing.Now the directive has changed from capture to kill, the morals, legalities and politics of British and American governments come into play, all from the safety of their offices.I expected the terrorist story to be the film opener and for the mission to either go wrong or go as planned and then we move on to other things. However, this is not just to set the scene. This is the whole film which quickly becomes a story of morals as the clever army statisticians (again, all from the safety of the UK) work out the chance of fatality of the innocent bystanders in this highly residential area with street traders outside the house being watched.Lieutenant General Frank Benson (sadly but) brilliantly played by Alan Rickman, is supervising the mission from London surrounded by witnesses from the UK government. The cat and mouse dance around the probability fatality factor of innocents between Ministers, Secretary’s, Prime Ministers is farcical. I really hope they don’t do this in reality but have faith in the senior army staff to make the decisions they are being paid to. Particularly I hope they don’t send in two rookie operatives to fire the weaponry at half a dozen terrorists in order to prevent hundreds of killings. But no, I’m guessing lives are lost amongst the people taking huge risks to make us safer because of political decisions.An interesting watch with my main frustration being with the (government) lady who questioned the Lt. General about soldiers being trigger happy while sitting remotely in their offices. He gave a dignified answer. I would have been tempted to give her a good shake.No one comes out of this thriller as the good guy. It’s a joint operation and my sense of it is that the American government are forthright and strong and British are, well, not.I for one am glad our soldiers don’t need to be on the front line due to drone technology. That is until the bad guys have the same tech too.7½/10Seen any films lately? @RickieWrites