Here's a very simple truth when it comes to drone technology,
they're not going away any time soon. Or as Bruce Greenwood's Air Force
commander bluntly puts it in Andrew Niccol's Good
Kill, "Drones aren't going anywhere. In fact, they're going
everywhere". The other truth is that all of the arguments being made
against drones now, that they dehumanize the targets and creates a disconnect
from the violence, have been made for decades with the advancement of
technology. You think they didn't say the same thing with the advent of jet
fighters? That the arguments are familiar doesn't diminish the moral dilemma
for those called to carry out these long-distance kill orders, and that
internal struggle lay at the heart of Niccol's intelligent but burdensome
drama.
Want to know another truth about drone
technology? They've not only completely changed the very nature of warfare
around the world; they've struck like a laser-guided missile on Hollywood war
movies. While there will always be films of camouflaged grunts taking the enemy
hill and whatnot, they'll forever be considered period pieces. Modern war
movies will look a lot more like Good Kill, with ex-soldiers sitting around
computer terminals punching buttons like George Jetson and slaughtering enemy
combatants from thousands of miles away. Ethan Hawke, who seems to do his best
work alongside Niccol, plays former Air Force pilot Tommy Egan, who longs to
get back in the cockpit but has been assigned to a Nevada sweatbox
"flying" drone missions. It's a much safer job, and his wife (January
Jones) is happy not having to worry about him, but Tommy misses the thrill of
the fight; the personal stakes invested anytime he enters combat. There's
nothing invested in what he's doing now, and things get more complicated when the
CIA (represented by the disembodied voice of Peter Coyote) begins issuing kill
orders that cross into some sketchy moral areas. Tommy and altruistic pilot
Suarez (Zoe Kravitz, in arguably her best performance) are called upon to bomb
first responders to their initial attack; to target mourners at a funeral; and
disregard the deaths of children who wandered into the blast zone. Meanwhile,
they're forced to sit back and watch as real crimes take place right under
their watchful eye.
Hawke has always played the world-weary
hero beautifully and he's great here as the unraveling Tommy, who turns to
alcohol to get over the painful memories of his actions. With his marriage
falling apart and no way back into the pilot's seat, Tommy is a man who doesn't
know what he's fighting for anymore. Who is he being ordered to kill, and why?
Do they deserve the death from above he's ordered to bring on a daily basis? In
him we see the building pressure more than we hear it, and Niccol's screenplay
does a good job of keeping the preachiness to a minimum for the most part.
Tommy's viewpoint is vocalized succinctly and thoughtfully by Suarez, who is
adamantly against the actions she's forced to undertake. Less nuanced are the
characters representing the pro-drone side of the argument, which amount
basically to "bomb bomb bomb Iran" levels of idiocy. Niccol tactfully
explores the gray area between national security and state-sanctioned murder,
showing the negative and positive sides of drone technology, so this isn't just
a "drones are terrible!!!" screed.
While Tommy's internal struggle remains
compelling throughout, the film gets bogged down by subplots that are less
relevant to his story or are resolved haphazardly. An ill-advised romance is
suggested that feels tacked on out of nowhere, as if somebody figured there were
too many scenes of people sitting around talking in military acronyms. Another
involves Tommy's criminal use of drone firepower to resolve a personal matter
on the ground, one that had been haunting him throughout the film. The
resolution, while clearly designed to be a crowd-pleasing moment in a film that
has few of them, runs completely counter to the darker, more authentic tone it
had been trying to set. Niccol is better than the cheesy "happy ending"
the film ends with, but Good
Kill is still a smart enough
film to make people think about drones and decide where they stand on the
issue.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
