Superb surveillance, modern war thriller by Gavin Hood.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: As US federal authorities and Apple Inc. grapple with the legalities, technicalities of unlocking locked iPhones to trace the links of terrorists and criminals, come director Gavin Hood’s (‘Tsotsi’, ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’) superb, realistic, modern war film ‘Eye in the Sky’ which drive home the point that surveillance with drones, destroying hyperlocal targets with guided missiles, to eliminate ISIS and their ilk of rogue soldiers, is the present and future of stealth warfare.
‘Eye in the Sky’ also makes it clear that some civilians and politicians may get indignant, angry about the concept of ‘Big Brother’ watching every move of citizens, but in an age of suicide bombers and extremists who would relish, celebrate, consider it an honor to kill millions of innocent people with nuclear, chemical and dirty bombs, responsible governments have no choice but to track, monitor suspects through satellites and savvy drones to keep humanity safe. It’s the only way to fight and defeat the bad guys out there, to keep the good guys safe.
The premise of ‘Eye in the Sky’ is simple enough: set in the year 2015, British, American and Kenyan intelligence and military personnel have finally pinpointed after tracking for six years the location of some highly wanted radical Islamic terrorists of the group Al Shabaab, gathered in a house in Somali-controlled neighborhood in Nairobi, Kenya. Top military personnel and politicians in multiple locations in the UK, US and Kenya can see on monitors and screens every move these terrorists make, through drones like a bird and beetle, which peer and penetrate the house where these rogues are meeting.
Matters come to a head when it’s revealed through a drone secreted in the house that the gathering also includes two young radicalized westerners, a British citizen and an American citizen, who had earlier in the day arrived at the Nairobi airport. Those two men are now ominously dressing up in vests loaded with bombs and recording video messages on jihad, before they embark on imminent suicide bombing missions which could kill scores of people if they were to implode themselves in a crowded area like a mall.
Time is running out. The military, legal and political authorities have to come to a consensus on whether to change the mission plan, which was initially to capture the radical terrorists holed up inside the house, but now in the face of circumstances, to bomb the location with a Hellfire missile positioned on a pilotless plane. The impediment and challenge for the political and legal big wigs: the likely collateral damage, the death of some civilians in the immediate vicinity of the targeted location, and political repercussions of the mission if it failed.
The central players in the mission, British colonel Katherine Powell (played by Helen Mirren), who has been the one tracking the wanted terrorists for long years and is now determined to kill them, and her British colleague Lt. Gen. Frank Benson (played by the late Alan Rickman), are in tandem for the mission.
However, some British politicians hesitate and have qualms about the collateral damage, which in this case is definitely a young Kenyan girl (played by Aisha Takow), selling bread near the target location. They delay the critical mission, keep trying to get permission from higher-ups in the bureaucracy, ending ultimately in the foreign secretary and even the British PM getting involved. US politicians, including the Secretary of State, are also consulted for the mission.
The dry humor and irony of passing on the buck at the highest echelons of power is not lost on viewers. Finally, when full clearance is given and Powell gives orders to two American drone pilots sitting in Las Vegas in a control room, Steve Watts (played by Aaron Paul and ) Carrie Gershon (played by Phoebe Fox), to fire the Hellfire missile, comes a twist.
The emotional Watts doesn’t want to bomb the location because of the little girl in the vicinity, whom he can also see on his monitor. Meanwhile, a Kenyan military agent in disguise as a bucket seller on the ground near the target location (played by Barkhad Abdi) – who had also sent the drone into the house for surveillance – tries to rescue the girl, despite his cover being blown.
No spoilers here. Go ahead and watch the film for what happens next.
Apart from the question of moral conscience the film offers and invokes in viewers, especially in the West where human lives have more value, even for poor folks, it’s also the hard, biting reality it portrays which is significant.
If the film does have a fault, it’s that at times it has the feel of a documentary of a real-life military mission from the past. Watching the surveillance play out on the larger screen, akin to watching a film within a film, is powerful. One walks out of the theater with the sudden knowledge (perceived before watching the film) that somebody was likely watching as one bought the popcorn, and is monitoring perhaps every footstep back to the car. It’s inevitable. Just resign oneself to the situation. Hope that the agents watching you don’t tap all your bedroom movements too.
While the likes of FedEx and Amazon ponder on using drones to make deliveries into crowded neighborhoods, flood skies with miniature flying objects, along with the legal ramifications of drone crash and loss of human lives, drones are surely defence forces’ best friend in the growing fight against terror.
‘Eye in the Sky’ is especially pertinent for situations today like in South Asia and the Koreas, where India and Pakistan, and South Korea and North Korea, respectively, face the prospect of not just fighting terror, but engage militarily against each other.
India is in talks with the US to purchase 40 Predator surveillance drones, reported Reuters, on Friday. Pakistan has already in the past few days complained on the international stage of India using drone technology to monitor their troops.
But for India, who are increasingly pressurized and threatened by militants from Pakistan, and has also to keep a wary eye on China and Bangladesh, as well as the Indian Ocean, using drones to counter territorial and terrorist threats is essential, if not critical. India has already acquired surveillance drones from Israel to monitor the mountains of Kashmir.
(Sujeet Rajan is Editor-in-Chief, The American Bazaar. Follow him @SujeetRajan1)