The Travelling Toe: "Eye In The Sky" (movie crtique)

EYE IN THE SKY
movie poster

The movie choice this week for the Friday Movie Mavens and The Travelling Toe was "Eye In The Sky" starring Helen Mirren.

HELEN MIRREN

This was an excellent movie. We all thoroughly enjoyed it. Keeps you on the edge of your seat!

The premise of the movie is a little hard to explain but it centers on Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) who is based at Northwood Headquarters, England and is on a mission to capture high valued terrorists hiding in Nairobi, Kenya. The Colonel has American support with a USAF drone pilot (Aaron Paul) stationed outside Las Vegas, Nevada (Area 51 perhaps???). The pilot and assistant provide aerial surveillance on the terrorists. While reviewing live feed, the Colonel discovers that 3 of the most wanted notorious terrorists are in the safe house. She wants an immediate strike by the drone to take out the compound. But back in London the politicians can't seem to make up their minds to authorize the drone strike or not. Of course part of the issue is CD - collateral damage - how many innocents will be effected is a concern. A Kenyan field agent, is dissipated to get a closer look at the terrorist compound and to ensure that the valued targets are still there. The field agent is played by Barkhad Abdi (you might remember him as a bad pirate dude in Captain Philips). He uses a small drone that looks like a beetle and flies it into the house. There we see 2 new recruits being armed with suicide vests. Now the decision needs to be made - deploy the drone to attack immediately and take out all the baddies plus more CD or let the suicide bombers leave and try to capture them all later. It is CD now versus CD by the suicide bombers. Who, or if, the decision to strike is made?

Well, Dear Readers, The Travelling Toe will leave the narrative there so you can see the movie yourself and find out if the drone strike was finally authorized and what actually happened.....or was it?

In today's environment it is possible that this scenario is being played out everyday., and you can see the toil that it takes on military personnel. It was also interesting that different groups were in different places such as the base in England, Las Vegas, Pearl Harbor, London, Singapore, China and Kenya - all in real time trying to make the right decision.

SIDE NOTE:

The late Alan Rickman is a featurd actor in this movie and as he always did in any role that he had, was excellent. He will be missed. His last line in the film is delivered perfectly, telling one of the politician's , "Never tell a solider he doesn't know the cost of war".

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