Good Kill (2015)

This film tells the story of a drone pilot in the air force, who is tasked to kill terrorists in Afghanistan. As the commands get more dubious, he gets into a battle with his own morality.An interesting thing about "Good Kill" is the widespread use of static cameras. Even when two people are talking to each other, the camera do not cut from one person to another, instead the camera stays at a constant position with both people in view. It is unusual to see this in a big film.As for the story, it is a gripping story about whether it is right or wrong to kill someone thousands of miles away. There is the societal level debate, and a personal level debate in the film. The battle in his inner self is competing to be more destructive than the battle far away. It is a thought provoking story.

New Zealand director Andrew Niccol's newest film that found itself arriving on our shelves as a direct to DVD event is a war film with a difference and in many ways an extremely intriguing and topical examination of modern warfare that has seen the Mavericks of the real world replaced with the gamers of the fantasy world, who excel at hand eye coordination, but it's a shame Niccol's struggles to find an engaging narrative to coincide with his hot topic plot driver.Teaming up with his Gattaca star Ethan Hawke, who it must be said is on a fairly decent streak thanks to turns in the great Predestination and the award baiting Boyhood, Niccol struggles to make Hawke's one time pilot turned drone operator Thomas Egan an engaging figure and Hawke while performing well can't help make Egan an overly appealing lead when he treats his wife Molly played by January Jones so poorly and mopes about for a majority of the films run time, bemoaning his lot in life as a man who would rather be in the skies than in a dark room in the Las Vegas outskirts killing terrorists from afar.It's in this hugely intriguing and in many ways scary aspect of modern warfare that Niccol's film shines and it would be likely than many viewers will find themselves shocked at not only the force of drone warfare and its destructive capabilities but the prevalence of these tools of warfare that have now as stated in the movie become more popular than the production of piloted machinery like the Top Gun jets of old.Good Kill does a great job and showcasing the uses of these technologically advanced drones and how like any modern day video game does detaches the user from the real life violence that lay at the other end of their trigger fingers and one perfectly summed up wording in Good Kill suggests that the army now looks to gaming arcades to find their next recruits suggesting that there will one day no longer be any ace pilots of old, more-so a lot of RSI suffered from members of the armed forces and pilots concerned with how much lag is present in their mission.A unique and insightful look at modern day tactics used to fight in both wars and anti-terror operations, Good Kill flies high when dealing with the aspects of the detachment of these drones but fails to engage on an emotional level with its dramatic playing's around them all despite another fine Ethan Hawke performance and solidly scripted examinations from Niccol.3 lag reports out of 5

Years ago I remember reading a book on medieval history where the invention of the crossbow and the accuracy that it gave archers made one critic cry 'the valor of man is at end'. In the words of Al Jolson he hadn't seen anything yet, most prominently nuclear bombs.Good Kill is a film that talks about the morality of using drones, but a lot of people seem to miss the point. Man is no longer part of the wonder of flight, that which made people like Charles Lindbergh cross the ocean, made air aces out of Eddie Rickenbacker and Baron Von Richtofen, made Chuck Yeager set speed records. Air war in movies when we entered the jet age was William Holden in The Bridges At Toko-Ri, Alan Ladd in The McConnell Story or even in Top Gun where Tom Cruise and his mates were training and matching their skills against each other.At one time Ethan Hawke was one of those Top Guns probably enlisted during the 90s and saw real combat with real people shooting back at him. Now he wages war from the suburbs of Las Vegas in a quonset hut type shack directing pilotless drones. His skills as a pilot no longer needed. If Tom Cruise's Pete Mitchell aka Maverick was still in the Navy he too might be facing such a challenge. You can just as easily launch a drone from the deck of the USS Nimitz.Hawke wants to get to flying again use the skills he's acquired. But in what could be the dawn of a new age he's become obsolete. War is about to become the province of video gamers and the violence rained down is real and coldly impersonal. Not even directed by the men trained to fight, but policy analysts of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia.Hawke's issues are putting a strain on his marriage to January Jones who understandably likes having her husband home every evening. I remember a film called Sabre Jet where it showed the Air Force in its first war in Korea flying missions in Korea during the day and heading home to the base in Japan. There the wives were worried that their men might not come back, here no such worry.Hawke also finds a kindred spirit in Zoe Kravitz who questions not just the morality of the whole idea but the fact that just as women are gaining equality in skill she's also not being needed.For humankind what will it all mean? I guess we'll all be going deep underground in the future as drones become more readily available. Were we meant to live that way?Good Kill is thought provoking picture about the future of something we hope doesn't have a future, war. Now is the time to bless those peacemakers.

In this review I will try to explain why I left a 3 star rating & I am pretty sure many will disagree with me because the movie scored 9/10 on many categories. However, sometimes small flaws discredit the whole movie & I am not talking about the typical mistakes we always find on many movies. I give the producer 9/10, director 9/10, lead 9/10, casting 8/10 & a 1/10 for screenplay. The talented writer of this movie fell for the classic self delusion many great directors/writers fall for. They start their careers with the 3 great movies they always thought off & easily write it down & direct it. In this case Gattaca, Truman Show & Lord of War all three were masterpieces written by Andrew Niccol. All shared a hyper sensationalist touch & an eye into a world we did know, usually a plot we can't examine so the mistakes we saw there didn't ruin the movie & the writer happened to have more information about the subject in matter. Forward a decade into Good Kill, you open up to a perfect movie, a very interesting topic, great casting & perfect picture, but the big flaw becomes apparent as we go throw the movie you feel that the writer has no clue about Vegas or the USAF in many spoilers that you have to watch. The fulcrum of the movie is our grounded pilot who wants to get back into his F-16, now part of a 4 man (1 lady & 3 men) team sending drones after terrorists. Each his own individual perspective of their part in this war. The ex pilot share a superficial dislike of the drone war, as you will find out for different reasons & you should know the rest. As our USAF F16 grounded pilot tells us how he misses landing on Aircraft carriers, I lost interests & started noticing that the script must have been written to meet some deadline...another once great master past his prime