Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Richard McCabe, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, Monica Dolan, Iain Glen, Babou Ceesay, Phoebe Fox, Aaron Paul, Faisa Hassan, Aisha Takow, Armaan Haggio, Gavin Hood, Ebby Weyime, Lex King, Andrew Ahula, Ali Mohamed.

There are many reasons in which to take Eye In The Sky for a simple film about choice, its after effects and the consequences of decision; there are many reasons in which to understand that sometimes the greater good is served by the action of several bad and potentially evil people being taken out and one good person losing their life because of it; what it doesn’t prepare you for is the harrowing nature in which some decisions are formed.

Eye In The Sky may be Alan Rickman’s final screen role but it is down to Helen Mirren as Colonel Katherine Powell, a woman whose objectivity in the face of potential disaster is questionable to say the least, is the most outstanding of characters portrayed in the film. The almost bloodthirsty way in which she seeks retribution and reckoning is captured perfectly and the fear that at times the military is above the law is played out with a sense of almost calm panic. It is the questionable act of using pilotless drones from the safety of a chair in an airbase thousands of miles away that brings home just how far war has become a distanced occupation, hindered by legal standpoints but always ready to detonate and unleash a weapon, Eye In The Sky is both thought provoking and harrowing all in one go.

The film’s allusion to a God who can smite down from above, an all seeing eye in the sky, with impunity and without concerning themselves for the single person whose life will be devastated and cut short is subtextually alarming, it offers the thought that whilst the chain of command will always go up the scale, that nobody truly wants to make the decision to allow an innocent life to die, it still comes down to the lower ranks to lie and cover up for their superiors; man-made God in his own image, it is such a shame that the base model it was carved from is still one that was flawed and suspect.

A film that haunts the psyche, a film that shows just how far legality and decisions about a life can be taken, Eye In The Sky reflects the growing disquiet about how you no longer have to look someone in the eye as you take their life. Brave and intelligent, harrowing and disturbing, Eye In The Sky will catch you unawares.

Ian D. Hall