In a cubicle on an air force base in the Nevada Desert, Major Tom Egan flies drones over Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen as part of America's War On Terror.
Good Kill is Andrew Niccol's third collaboration with Ethan Hawke, and a long overdue study of America's drone war. This is not a full-on denunciation of drone warfare, though. The film never really answers, or asks, the question of what is it about drones that makes them morally different from bombing by conventional aircraft. Instead, a sharp script and solid acting present both sides of the argument which swirls around Egan, played by Hawke as a taciturn, frustrated pilot who just wants to get back in a jet and fly again.
Egan expresses few opinions early on about drones, or anything else, but his dissatisfaction with the new warfare, conducted via HD screens in a prefab unit while F16s are mothballed, is always visible. The arguments for and against drones are made by the rest of Egan's squad: Zoe Kravitz is the quietly conscientious objector while Dylan Kenin and Jake Abel play men absolutely convinced of America's superiority and righteousness.
Tom Egan's disillusion with the war really sets in when his squad suffers the ultimate military indignity of having to take orders from the CIA. In reality the CIA ran its own drone war starting just after 9/11 and it's unlikely they would have had to use the Air Force for missions but it's an interesting plot development which forces the squad to confront their actions even more due to the CIA's determination to kill everyone in sight.
Good Kill presents an important issue that hasn't had enough coverage in America or Britain, which has its own drone campaign running in the middle east, totally unreported by the British media. It avoids being preachy or moralistic about the subject and in fact seems unsure whether it wants to condemn drones or not. At the end Egan uses a drone strike to kill a bad man he's observed committing crimes he's never going to be prosecuted for. Is the film saying that drone strikes are okay if they're used as policing instruments? Or is this subplot just a device so that Egan can walk away from the program with his head high because he's done something good with a drone? In one understated, underused scene, Good Kill shows us something we don't often see: Egan pulls up outside a mosque in Las Vegas and sits for a moment, just watching the people talking and coming and going. It contrasts with the beautiful shots of the better-known, glamorous Vegas and raises questions about exactly which America is the War On Terror being fought for? What do American Muslims think about it? Has anyone ever asked them?
Good Kill is Andrew Niccol's third collaboration with Ethan Hawke, and a long overdue study of America's drone war. This is not a full-on denunciation of drone warfare, though. The film never really answers, or asks, the question of what is it about drones that makes them morally different from bombing by conventional aircraft. Instead, a sharp script and solid acting present both sides of the argument which swirls around Egan, played by Hawke as a taciturn, frustrated pilot who just wants to get back in a jet and fly again.
Egan expresses few opinions early on about drones, or anything else, but his dissatisfaction with the new warfare, conducted via HD screens in a prefab unit while F16s are mothballed, is always visible. The arguments for and against drones are made by the rest of Egan's squad: Zoe Kravitz is the quietly conscientious objector while Dylan Kenin and Jake Abel play men absolutely convinced of America's superiority and righteousness.
Tom Egan's disillusion with the war really sets in when his squad suffers the ultimate military indignity of having to take orders from the CIA. In reality the CIA ran its own drone war starting just after 9/11 and it's unlikely they would have had to use the Air Force for missions but it's an interesting plot development which forces the squad to confront their actions even more due to the CIA's determination to kill everyone in sight.
Good Kill presents an important issue that hasn't had enough coverage in America or Britain, which has its own drone campaign running in the middle east, totally unreported by the British media. It avoids being preachy or moralistic about the subject and in fact seems unsure whether it wants to condemn drones or not. At the end Egan uses a drone strike to kill a bad man he's observed committing crimes he's never going to be prosecuted for. Is the film saying that drone strikes are okay if they're used as policing instruments? Or is this subplot just a device so that Egan can walk away from the program with his head high because he's done something good with a drone? In one understated, underused scene, Good Kill shows us something we don't often see: Egan pulls up outside a mosque in Las Vegas and sits for a moment, just watching the people talking and coming and going. It contrasts with the beautiful shots of the better-known, glamorous Vegas and raises questions about exactly which America is the War On Terror being fought for? What do American Muslims think about it? Has anyone ever asked them?