THE screenplay that Guy Hibbert crafted for Gavin Hood’s riveting military/political/techno-thriller of our time on our planet has virtues putting it streets ahead of the expensive trash, fertilised with outer-space monsters and flying vehicles that obey none of the proven laws of physics, with which “comic book” publishers Marvel or DC pollute cinema screens.
“Eye In the Sky” conforms with the dramatic unities of place and time and the 3C principles for managing military or law enforcement operations – command, co-ordination and communication.
Its plot unfolds with high-tech military communications hardware (I don’t know which items are in service or which, if any, exist only in Hibbert’s imagination), co-ordinating strategic and tactical analysis by British policy advisers whose decisions reach up to head-of-government level for approval and down to commanders of action-ready US and Kenyan military units.
The credible, exciting plot has fun highlighting bureaucratic duck-shoving of hard choices to higher levels for approval. The emotional conflicts can tug the heartstrings of every parent, amaze as a colonel orders a sergeant to make a collateral damage evaluation way above the latter’s pay grade.
One simple option. Will Kenyan ground units standing by in Nairobi to assault a building to capture people wanted to prosecute for terrorist crimes get the go from Britain’s COBRA committee? Or will a pilot at a desk at a Nevada air force base flying a UAV somewhere within missile range get the order to launch a missile and, if so, at which corner of that building?
Coming to the decision, and the cinematic skills deployed to bring it to the screen, are one reason for the four stars. The other is that the role of the COBRA chairman was Alan Rickman’s last, which gives the film an additional emotional dimension.
At Palace Electric, Dendy, from March 24
Who can be trusted?
In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.
If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.
Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.
Thank you,
Ian Meikle, editor
Leave a Reply