Eye in the Sky

With the proliferation of drones in all walks of life, it was inevitable that we’d get a film like Eye in the Sky, a taut sociopolitical thriller about a high-tech effort to fight the war on terror.

Indeed, there’s plenty of contemporary relevance to this provocative examination of the logistical advantages and ethical challenges of essentially having an outsourced military, and how it affects traditional rules of surveillance and engagement.

The story revolves around a top-secret British military operation in Kenya, where intelligence officials are using drones to monitor suspected suicide bombers. When a colonel (Helen Mirren) tracks them to an abandoned house in a small village, she alerts an American pilot (Aaron Paul) behind a console in Las Vegas who’s appointed to fire the kill shot.

However, as a British general (Alan Rickman) gives his go-ahead, other government officials aren’t so sure, especially when an innocent young girl takes a seat near the house that’s slated for explosion. That causes everyone to recalculate the likelihood of collateral damage, with a Somali operative (Barkhad Abdi) enlisted to stabilize things on the ground in the meantime.

The dilemma creates a mess of confusion among American and British authorities arguing about risks and rewards and other ramifications. After all, it’s highly unusual to strike a target in a neutral country when that country isn’t at war.

Eye in the Sky is an intriguing glimpse into the diplomatic high stakes — and accompanying bureaucratic red tape — in a scenario that doesn’t seem that terribly far-fetched. The ensemble cast brings credibility across geographic boundaries, emphasizing a darkly comic absurdity.

The sharply written screenplay by Guy Hibbert (Five Minutes of Heaven) explores how high-tech gadgetry makes it possible to fight a war from a command center halfway around the world, through a clandestine lens embedded in an object no larger than an insect.

While there’s plenty to satisfy tech geeks, director Gavin Hood (Ender’s Game) offers more mainstream entertainment as well, gradually ratcheting up the tension despite a reliance on contrivances and exaggerations in the second half.

Still, even as the film gets carried away during its third-act countdown of sorts, it remains even-handed regarding the complexities of drone warfare, and smartly incorporates common fears regarding the evolving war on terror without resorting to cheap exploitation.

Rated R, 102 minutes.