2015 ( UK | South Africa ) ( Drama, Thriller, War )
STARRING: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman
DIRECTOR: Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood’s subtle and very tense thriller boasts an imperious and fiery performance from Helen Mirren as military intelligence officer, Colonel Katharine Powell. She is co-ordinating a drone operation to capture Al Shabab terrorists in Nairobi. Unless a decision is made quickly, the high value terrorists planning a suicide bombing may get away. The hitch is that the politicians, the military and the drone operators are all lost in their own moral mazes. No-one wants the responsibility for a mission that might go wrong and result in civilian death, bad headlines and legal retribution, especially as one of the terrorists is a British national.
There is a wonderful turn from the late Alan Rickman in his final screen role as a sardonic but very sharp witted British Lieutenant-Colonel, who is wrangling the politicians as they defer making a decision and all try to push the responsibility upwards.
Eye in the Sky offers a powerfully acted, and unusually cerebral, spin on the modern wartime political thriller.
(1hr 42min)