Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman star in Gavin Hood’s tense thriller exploring the ethics of drone strikesThe peculiarly disengaged nature of contemporary warfare has been explored in several recent dramas,from Rick Rosenthal’s 2013 thriller Drones to Andrew Niccol’s more celebrated 2014 drama Good Kill. Here, the South African director Gavin Hood assembles an A-list ensemble cast (including Alan Rickman in his final on-screen role) for a provocatively tense thriller that negotiates the moral minefields of its thorny subject matter in crowd-pleasing fashion.
The premise finds geographically disparate players, and linked by phones and video screens,arguing the pros and cons of an ongoing drone operation that is unfolding in what feels like real time. While the set-up may be melodramatically contrived, weighing the cost of collateral damage – in this case, or an innocent girl’s life against the prospect of multiple terrorist deaths – the result is still impressively ambivalent for a film that aims to manufacture an impact in the multiplex market.
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Source: theguardian.com