EYE IN THE SKY HAS NO ROOM IN THE BOMB FOR A HEART
The case for and against the use of drones is made in Eye in the Sky directed by Gavin Hood. Thanks to on-the-ground intelligence, terrorists high on the “most wanted” list in Nairobi are being tracked by a drone armed with a Hellfire missile ready for possible action. However, the order goes out to capture them alive. They travel to a compound in front of which is a young girl, Alia (played by Ai-sha Takow), who is selling her mom’s bread straight from mom’s oven. A drone shaped like a hawk verifies who gets out of the vehicle and goes into the compound. A local operative is asked to send a drone shaped like a big housefly into the compound to determine who is present. A discovery is then made that two terrorists are about to don suicide vests, presumably to explode them in a shop-ping mall, so Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) recommends a change in the order: She now asks for approval for a hit. But two are British subjects, and one is an American citizen, so the blow-back from the hit not only might infuriate both countries but also will kill an innocent child. Is the hit legal? Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman), who sits at the head of the table in the Brit-ish situation room, flanked by members of the prime minister’s cabinet, awaits approval from the ci-vilian authorities. They are at first divided, so they have to consult the foreign and prime ministers as well as the American secretary of state. Rules of engagement are at issue. After some discussion on minimizing collateral damage, the decision is made to send the Hellfire. But they delay the strike until the innocent girl sells her bread and leaves the perimeter, even though the suicide bombers are ready to leave on a mission to cause far more civilian casualties than one girl. The local drone opera-tor tries to buy the bread but is chased away by terrorist patrol officers. The drama plays out with ac-tors who are tense, and music adds to the suspense over what will happen to the girl.
One of the major revelations is how many persons are involved on the military side—several on the ground in Kenya, Powell and others in a military situation room, facial recognition experts in Pearl Harbor, and those at a military base near Las Vegas who have to pull the trigger. But there is one ma-jor flaw in the script: The original target will likely kill the girl, but Colonel Powell does not imme-diately have the target adjusted to minimize collateral damage. And filmviewers are led to believe that the situation room will be reconstituted in the same manner for each and every high profile drone strike, as General Benson objects during the film. Surely cabinet ministers will get PTSD.
The aim of Eye in the Sky, a title that serves as the nickname for drones, is to promote discussion on whether drone warfare should be banned, as the day is coming when ruthless terrorists will gain ac-cess to them, with devastating results in Western countries. Accordingly, the Political Film Society has nominated Eye in the Sky for best film of 2016 for raising consciousness about the need to settle conflicts peacefully—and to change the dialog to focus on capture, not conquest, or perhaps on find-ing a way to deal with the reasons why certain persons are terrorists in the first place. MH