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
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