Good Kill (2014)

Directed by: Andrew Niccol
Country: USA

Movie Review: ‘Splash!’ and ‘Good Kill!’ are the most common expressions used by the US Air Force drone pilots when they remotely blow up their targets (supposedly Al Qaeda cells) throughout the blacklisted countries of the Middle East. Absent-minded Major Thomas Egan (Ethan Hawke) works with a small team, supervised by veteran Jack Johns (Bruce Greenwood), in an air-conditioned cubicle placed in the desert of Las Vegas. He’s the man who literally pulls the trigger, which is affecting him psychologically. What we see on their screens seems to be an entertaining video game, but the truth is that they’re killing real people, and that fact weighs in their consciences, especially when innocents are accidentally killed or when the inaccurate assessments about the suspects raise strong doubts, putting the ethics of their actions in question. Other times, they witness rapes and mistreatment against women and can do nothing about it. All this is aggravated by a serious marital crisis and the profound dissatisfaction caused by staying away from real combat and real planes. It seems too much for the decayed Thomas, who can only find some solace in vodka and in the multiple conversations with his sensible co-worker Vera Suarez (Zoe Kravitz). The film was pretty sustainable and quickly gained my attention, but during the last third, filmmaker Andrew Niccol seemed too busy inventing a couple of hackneyed situations to please Hollywood fans. Hawke remained sober in his role, carrying the film on his shoulders. Sometimes quietly stimulating, sometimes simply restrained, “Good Kill” ends up passing the message with efficiency but with no special distinction.