Arts + Culture
Pin It
Favourite
Print
Email
Share

March 31, 2016 Arts + Culture » Film + TV

Review: Eye in the Sky  

A very simple story of humanity, thoughtfully told.

By
click to enlarge bfbba6a57cc31fe168ba4000852ab2cb.jpg

The actor-writer-director Gavin Hood follows up the mostly computer-generated Ender’s Game—about a boy training to fight intergalactic war through a simulator that turned out to be real—with a similar but much more realistic battle pitched across nations in Eye in the Sky. Colonel Katherine Powell is played by Helen Mirren—a terrific, welcome force to have in a typically manly environment such as this—and she has learned there is a terrorist cell in Kenya about to execute a suicide bombing in a crowded market. From the United Kingdom, she’s locked onto the house they’re using, and working with a pair of fighter pilots (Aaron Paul and Phoebe Fox) in America who control the missile she wants to use to take out the cell. Then a little girl sets up a table, selling bread to feed her family, in front of the house, and it becomes an escalating moral dilemma: Is the child’s death worth saving hundreds more? Alan Rickman, in one of his final roles, appears as Powell’s husband, also a high-ranking military official—he and Mirren only share a few scenes, but it’s a treat to see these vets play. Hood manages to build much tension between people basically talking on the phone, and inserts action where he can—Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) is working on the ground in Kenya, trying to lure the girl out of range of the missile strike. Its framework, politically charged and internationally reaching as it is, appears complicated, but this is a very simple story of humanity, tensely and thoughtfully told.



Eye in the Sky
Rated PG · 102 min. · 2016
Director: Gavin Hood
Writer: Guy Hibbert
Producer: Ged Doherty, Colin Firth and David Lancaster
Cast: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, Iain Glen, Phoebe Fox, Carl Beukes, Monica Dolan and Lex King

Trailer


Now Playing

Sorry there are no upcoming showtimes for Eye in the Sky

Pin It
Favourite
Print
Email
Share

Speaking of...

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Latest in Film + TV

more articles in Arts + Culture »

Comments

Showing 1-1 of 1

Add a comment

 
Subscribe to this thread:
By Email
With RSS
Showing 1-1 of 1

Add a comment

Events
Music
Film Times
Dining
Locations

Survey Asks

How long is someone considered a come-from-away?

  • Until they get a Nova Scotian phone number
  • Until they get a Nova Scotian driver’s license
  • Until they own land
  • Until they have children
  • Until their children have children

View Results

Art Attack

More »

In Print This Week

Vol 25, No 16
September 14, 2017

Cover Gallery »

Guides

Real Time Web Analytics

© 2017 Coast Publishing Ltd.