Every year, it seems, practically all the films that earn theatrical releases between the first day of January and the dog days of August are throwaways at best. At their worst, they are mindless alleged entertainments that are the equivalent of assembly line products that have been spat out of a computer.
One current example is BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, a film that symbolizes contemporary Hollywood excess. BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE was produced on a budget that is upwards of $250-million. Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill play the title characters, and its high-profile cast includes Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, and Holly Hunter. But the best that can be said for BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE is that it is heavy-handed and boring. It is a two-and-a-half-hour-long time-waster
Another is WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, starring Tina Fey. Now I’ve really enjoyed Tina Fey on both the big and small screens and, even though the film is not a straight-out comedy-- Fey plays a journalist, and the scenario spotlights her character’s experiences covering the war in Afghanistan-- I did have hopes for it. But those hopes quickly vanished. WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT is yet one more film that is tedious and instantly forgettable. Whenever I’m seeing a film and find myself glancing at my watch in anticipation of when it will end, which exactly was the case while sitting through WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, well, I am bored. And scant days after seeing this film, I had little memory of exactly what had transpired onscreen.
However, once in a while, a film that is well-worth seeing and pondering premieres theatrically early in the year. One such title is EYE IN THE SKY, a taut, tough-minded thriller that works on two levels. It is a well-made edge-of-your-seat entertainment, and it offers a thought-provoking take on our current war on terror.
The setting here is a village in Kenya, and EYE IN THE SKY involves various military folk who have some suicide bombers under high-tech surveillance in an otherwise nondescript residence. Clearly, these bad guys are strapping bombs to their bodies and are about to set off on a mission. If that mission succeeds, dozens will be killed; surely, a drone strike would do them in and prevent disaster. But there is a problem. An innocent little girl happens to be selling homemade bread right outside the terrorists’ hideout. If that hideout is demolished, the child surely will die. So how do the decision-makers react? What is the appropriate protocol here? Do they risk saving the life of this one child, or do they sacrifice her in order to spare countless others?
EYE IN THE SKY offers a compelling portrait of military commanders who may (or may not) make split-second decisions that may (or may not) result in the deaths of untold innocent civilians. Plus, it offers a portrait of the manner in which state-of-the-art technology is employed in contemporary warfare. While accomplishing this, EYE IN THE SKY also works as a pulse-pounding entertainment. So not all films released at this time of the year are brainless time-wasters, or at best seriously flawed. Some even are genuinely memorable.
Rob Edelman has authored or edited several dozen books on film, television, and baseball. He has taught film history courses at several universities and his writing has appeared in many newspapers, magazines, and journals. His frequent collaborator is his wife, fellow WAMC film commentator Audrey Kupferberg.
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