Eye in the Sky (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ender's Game)
	Actors:  Helen Mirren (2010, Hitchcock, R.E.D 1-2), Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman (Die Hard, Galaxy Quest, Dogma, Harry Potter 1-7), Iain Glenn (Game of Thrones TV-series)
	Country: GB, ZA
	Genre: War, Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 21.07.2016, onflight entertainment 8" screen
Synopsis: A military operation is led by the British with support of the American Forces to capture some of the terrorists on their most-wanted list as they meet in Ethiopia.
Review: I hadn't heard about this movie and watched it during a long flight because of its cast: Mirren, Glenn and the regretted Alan Rickman. Thus I didn't expect such a tension to increase and hold through the 1h40 of the movie, but it is indeed the main strength of this movie. I does not display modern warfare in the ultra-realism style of movies like The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty or American Sniper (all of them American movies about American wars) but rather reminded me of Black Hawk Down, the country of setting of the action probably helping in that. In Eye in the Sky we don't follow a military troop in the action, but rather two pilots of a drone that flies high above the action (themselves located in the USA), and the many people taking decisions based on the transmitted images: the head of operations (Mirren), her boss (Rickman) together with political advisors, the British minister of foreign affairs (Glenn), an image analysists in Hawaii and two local Somalis in support. We are in the era of communications and the use of a drone is very actual (I have recently seen some on TV displayed during the French Bastille Day parade). The movie even goes beyond that by showing a mini-drone of the size of an insect. I have seen a documentary and read an article about this technology, not as far in the future as you may think. The events quickly don't go as planned and it gets even worse when (spoiler, highlight to read) a 9 year-old girl comes near the planned point of impact of a missile. The decision-making process of all the characters is very well told in the movie, and the tension rises to the point of being almost unbearable for the audience. And I found the ending perfectly uncompromising. Highly recommended.
Rating: 8 /10