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Eye in the Sky is a contemporary military drama about an anti-terror operation in Nairobi, Kenya.

The operation has been organised by the British and Kenyan military, and involves coordination of Kenyan intelligence operatives, a Kenyan commando team, a US Air Force drone, controlled from a base in Nevada, and an intelligence analyst in California. This wide-spread team is commanded by Colonel Powell (Helen Mirren) in a British HQ in north-west London. Everything is being fed live to General Benson (Alan Rickman) who is military liaison with a British government sub-committee with several cabinet ministers who are overseeing the political aspects of the raid.

Everyone is connected by high-bandwidth networks, allowing all the different camera and data feeds to be easily displayed.

The objective of the mission is to capture several high level Kenyan, British and American (US) members of Al-Shabbab, who are two, four and five on the US and British Most Wanted list. Colonel Powell has been searching for these people for six years. The terrorists are gathering in a safe house in Nairobi, which the commando team are to surround and attack once all the wanted individuals have arrived.

Things get complicated when the intended targets unexpectedly leave the safe house and move to a building inside an area of the city controlled by Al-Shabbab militia. The commandos are unable to follow, so a Somalian intelligence operative, working for the Kenyans, infiltrates with a bug. He discovers they have gone there to prepare a suicide bombing, and an arms merchant has arrived with several kilos of explosive to put into bomb vests for two lower level suspects..

Colonel Powell decides to abandon the now-impossible capture mission and asks instead for permission for a Hellfire missile strike on the house, reckoning this will have a very high chance of killing the three major targets and preventing a big suicide attack. However things are complicated by the presence of civilians in the area, particularly a very cute little girl about eight years old, who is selling bread just outside the target building.

For about an hour, arguments, opinions and counter-arguments fly up and down the chain of command, with General Benson pressing for a decision, the politicians worrying about the political repercussions of an attack, and the drone team worried about causing civilian casualties with their missile. The British politicians are particularly hopeless and squirm around trying to avoid taking responsibility, when clearly from a military viewpoint, such decisions should have been thought out in advance.

While this psychological drama is playing out, the unsuspecting Al-Shabbabs are busy preparing their bomb vests, making a propaganda video and so on. It’s obvious that time will run out, and they will leave the house and disperse. With only one drone on station it will then be impossible to track all the targets. Massive loss of life will be practically certain with two suicide bombers in operation, and the other main capture targets will get clean away.

I won’t spoil the film by telling how things resolve. I will say it’s the most edge-of-the-seat film I’ve seen in a long time. It definitely makes you think about the moral dilemmas involved in this kind of operation. It’s a good one to see at a time when drones and bombers are the main ways we fight back against terrorist organisation.

A lot of the action is seen remotely through the video fed back by the drone and bug cameras, interspersed with bits of close-up “live action”. I don’t know how realistic the sensor, communication and targetting technology is, but it seems at least plausible.

The performances are very good, and it was Alan Rickman’s last film so worth seeing to wave him goodbye.

I'm glad you posted this. I'm on the fence about going to see it - one the one hand, the source material is sort of interesting, and I love going to the movies. On the other hand, it sort of looks like a rental. Then I see the Rotten Tomatoes review - it was like 95% or so last I checked, coupled with the "I will say it’s the most edge-of-the-seat film I’ve seen in a long time." probably will push me off the fence into seeing it.

Defnitely not straight to video, IMO. But don't expect a spy or action thriller. It's far more psychological and fact based.

Mainstream media reviews have varied from 50% up to 90%, according to IMDB.

If it isn't a hugely action based film then there's a slim chance they may portray drones acurately, so it sounds like it could be worth a watch. Films like Skyline, the A-Team and Eagle Eye have all thoroughly cocked up and misrepresented what a drone is and what it can do.

My last deployment, I worked in the TOC for a unit whose sole responsibility was ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Recon). Drones made up a significant portion of our workload.

I'd be interested in watching this, see how they portray it.

I had heard good word of mouth on this before.

I'm sure the camera pics would not be so good on a real drone, but maybe with modern 4K cameras it's possible.