Eye in the Sky - 2015 film review

Eye in the Sky is an outstanding action film, much of its strength deriving from the way it balances high-stakes drama with an exploration of almost impossible ethical choices. The director, Gavin Hood, and the writer, Guy Hibbert, do sterling work and the acting is excellent. You'd expect that from the charismatic leads, Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman (whose last screen role this was) but a special word of praise must also go to Barkhad Abdi, who is brilliant as an undercover Kenyan agent, a testing role that he handles with aplomb.

The set-up is that Mirren is a tough British colonel who has been tracking a female terrorist for years. Intelligence has now been received that this woman and a group of other terrorists are gathering together. A joint operation between the Americans, British and Kenyans is to capture the targets. In London, Rickman is the deputy chief of the Defence Staff and he is in a COBRA meeting with top politicians. They all watch footage filmed via drones operated skilfully by Farah (Abdi) and this reveals that in fact the terrorists are plotting a suicide bombing mission. We see them strapping on the suicide belts. Capturing them is no longer a realistic option. If they are not killed by a remote-controlled missile, then a large number of people will die.

But there is a big problem. A small girl is selling bread just outside the compound where the terrorists are preparing. A missile strike may kill her too. Mirren is intent on eliminating the threat and Rickman, although less ruthlessly focused, concludes that is the right thing to do. But the politicians and lawyers waver. They are agonised by the choice and I can understand why.

The central difficulty in these terrible dilemmas, I think, is that we are human beings who look to humanise situations. We see the lovely and totally innocent girl, so any decent person will want to save her. But shouldn't a decent person also use their imagination to try to picture the significant number of other people who will suffer and die if no action is taken? It's easy to understand why decision-makers want to shuffle off final responsibility, but one of the most chilling - yet entirely believable - moments in the film comes when the politicians start thinking about the dilemma in terms of propaganda rather than humanity. I'm thankful that I've never been involved in any comparable life or death decision-making. But I have taken part in meetings to discuss high-stakes issues involving many people's livelihoods and futures and at such times, you see human nature in the raw. It's seldom a pretty sight, and this is made clear, compellingly, by Eye in the Sky.

This film also makes it clear that there are no easy answers, no consequence-free decisions. Balancing risks is crucial. But it's also very painful. A superb film, strongly recommended.  

 

The Good Liar - 2019 film review

I was drawn to The Good Liar, as I guess many people will be, by the fact that the cast is led by Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen. And the first thing to say about this relatively recent (2019) film is that both are in very good form here, especially Mirren. The script by Jeffrey Hatcher is based on a novel by Nicholas Searle which I haven't come across. 

The set-up is apparently simple. A woman and a man in the autumn of their lives sign up to a dating agency. They seem to have a good deal of chemistry, but it soon becomes clear that Roy Courtnay (McKellen) is not all he seems. Russell Tovey, introduced as Mirren's grandson Steven, makes clear his suspicions but Mirren (Betty McLeish) brushes them off.

Courtnay is a con man with considerable expertise in fleecing people out of large sums of money. It also emerges that he is very ruthless. His partner in crime is Vincent (Jim Carter, yet another appealing actor). We fear for Betty, but we also know that Mirren generally plays strong women. So what is going to happen?

There are plot twists that upend the viewer's expectations. Not all of them are adequately foreshadowed in my opinion (though perhaps I need to watch the film again to see if that really is a fair judgment) but they are certainly striking. As a result, the story changes direction rather abruptly and this isn't entirely satisfying. Overall, though, it's a good film with a number of enjoyable moments as well as several first-rate performances.

The Debt - film review

The Debt is a recent American remake of an earlier Israeli film, and it boasts a wonderful cast - Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Jessica Chastain and Marton Csokas, to name a few. It's an espionage film, but although there's plenty of exciting, and sometimes chilling action and suspense, there's also an attempt to deal with important issues such as when it is better to tell the truth rather than sticking to a lie that has saved people from harm.

The early scenes need to be watched very carefully, as the action zips around and two different periods of time are involved. Mirren plays Rachel, a woman who in 1990s Israel enjoys a considerable reputation for courage, whose adoring daughter has just written a book about her past exploits in espionage. Wilkinsoon is her ex-husband, a spy who has become an important political figure, but who uses a wheelchair (we learn that this is because he had been blown up by car bomb.)

Various scenes flash back to a time, 30 years earlier, when this pair, along with another young man, go to East Germany during the Cold War, trying to capture a brutal former Nazi medic - the Surgeon of Birkenau. We see early on an apparently conclusive scene explaining what happpened, but later on, it turns out that we have been misled.

The tricky storytelling rather appealed to me. Playing games with story structure is something that is fascinating when it is well done, and here it is very well done. There are some very dark moments along the way, and I'm not entirely sure why Rachel made her final choice. In fact, I'm not absolutely convinced it was the right choice, but this is a consistently gripping movie, which made quite an impact on me. A good example of a strong story that is something more than just a straightforward thriller.

State of Play

Some time back, I watched – and blogged about- the TV serial State of Play, starring John Simm and David Morrissey, which I rated pretty highly. Now I’ve watched the film version, starring Russell Crowe. Paul Abbott’s story is transferred here to the US and I didn’t expect to like the film as much as the original, but to my surprise, I did.

It’s a conspiracy thriller – a maverick journalist gets wind of a plot that involves his old friend Stephen Collins, who is now a rising politician. The fact the journalist fancies Stephen’s wife is a complication, and there are plenty of plot twists.

One flaw in the TV version was that the pace sagged in the middle - not so with the film. In the original, Collins plays a greater part than in the film, which tends to focus on Russell Crowe, who does his charismatic slob performance very effectively. The newspaper editor, brilliantly done on TV by Bill Nighy, is done differently but again very well if less quirkily by Helen Mirren.

Conspiracy thrillers tend in my opinion to be very hit and miss. But State of Play is definitely a hit. I enjoyed both versions, and can recommend them.