Good Kill
Grade: B
Director: Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show, Lord of War)
Screenplay: Niccol
Cast: Ethan Hawke (Boyhood), January Jones (Unknown)
Rating: R
Runtime: 102 min.
by John DeSando
“Drones aren't going anywhere. In fact, they're going everywhere.” Lt. Col. Jack Johns
Major Thomas Egan (Ethan Hawke) plays his joystick with the magic of a kid on his ever present Xbox but with the depression of a pilot who feels like a coward 7,000 miles away from his target. Such is the dilemma of this contemporary military drama, far from the immediacy of Hurt Locker and American Sniper but more problematic.
As we might have figured, the collateral damage from drone strikes includes the psyches of the soldiers who operate the computers that strike compounds with pin point accuracy at the foreign targets and the hearts of the operators. As to whether the annihilated Afghanistan residents are a clear danger to us, the film remains mute.
Tommy Egan grows increasingly wary of his role as remote executioner and longing for a return to the fear and rush of piloting an F-16. The film takes its time exposing Egan’s increasing unease while it dramatizes the clichéd frustration of his wife, Molly (January Jones), who suffers loneliness during his decline into alcoholism and impotency. The time between Egan’s executing the hit and the explosion, about 10 seconds, is painfully redolent of the enormous gulf between our understanding of war and its actuality. That’s a long 10 seconds.
Beyond the usual formulaic responses to hard duty, Good Kill does a credible job of presenting the arguments for denigrating the drone program’s seeming license to kill while the film doesn’t do a good job of balancing out with the plusses.
Granted,it does explain the advantage of not having American body bags returning, yet it seems to hold back on how strategically they can help defeat the enemy whole demoralizing them at the same timem.
“Don’t ask me if this is a just war. It’s just war.” Johns
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.co
