Eagle Eye
(2008)
I’m a sucker for a good conspiracy movie, but this most
certainly is not it. One might, at a stretch, hold that there is a daring
subtext beneath the glossy fireworks and routine action. But, if there is, it
is insufficient to overcome a plot that takes a “dangers of the surveillance state”
premise and almost perversely surrenders any of its potency to the most
familiar and stale of science fiction trappings.
Eagle Eye’s
opening sections suggest it might be angling for a latter day version of Three Days of the Condor; a (relative)
everyman thrust into a scenario beyond his control. Director D. J. Caruso, in
his second teaming with Shia Le Boeuf following Disturbia, litters his frames with reminders of how scrutinised we
are. Surveillance cameras record our every movement, from street corner to
cashpoint machine. As Le Boeuf’s Jerry Shaw takes a train journey, a newsreader
informs us that the FBI can hear everything you are saying and the only way to
curtail their scrutiny is to take the battery out of your phone. It’s a primer
for the OTT plot about to kick in, but it seems like a minor detail sat next to
the post-Edward Snowden vision of NSA snooping on a global scale.
The problem is, Caruso and his four credited writers have
little interest in rooting the ensuing dramatics in the real world. Tony
Scott’s Enemy of the State, made a
decade earlier, was exactly (and self-consciously) the update of ‘70s paranoia
movies needed at that time, taking advantage of the advances in technology to
create a vision of the US where it is impossible to disappear off the grid
without highly evolved faculties. But Eagle
Eye finds inspiration in Asimov (All
the Troubles of the World) and an earlier picture, Colossus: The Forbin Project. There, a super computer threatens
nuclear Armageddon when it applies its unflinching brand of logic to human
scenarios. Eagle Eye also borrows
from Kubrick in a manner that doesn’t compliment; Aria (Eagle Eye’s super computer) has the womb-like memory banks of Hal
9000, and a soft, sibilant voice to match (that of Julianne Moore). Once a “mad
computer run amok” forms the central plank of your tale, it’s going to be a
hard graft to apply topical commentary that has any resonance.
Further hindering any thoughts of substance is a plot composed
entirely of preamble. Jerry and Rachel (Michelle Monaghan, a rare example of a
female lead nearly a decade older than her male co-star) “have been activated” in order to spend 90 minutes on a wild goose
chase; Aria’s bonkers cross-country mission is predicated on the view that
Jerry requires coercion to comply, so naturally she initiates a scenario where
he is death will result if spit-second timing is not followed. It’s this, more
than anything, that will put off even the least demanding of viewers (there’s
also the rather obtuse device of the “lock”
that prevents Aria taking direct action but doesn’t impede her from instigating
it). The entire world becomes a message board for Aria to instruct Jerry; on
digital signage, on mobile phones, on TV screens. And every device imaginable
can be overridden, such that Aria can turn electricity pylons into a potential
death-trap (in a scene straight out of Final
Destination). This kind of abstract control function has most recently been
pursued by the rather banal series Person
of Interest, the problem being that, the less immediate the scenario you
present, the less potent it becomes. The whole point of a conspiracy thriller
is that the paranoid aspects should instill a sense of fearfulness (buying into
it wholesale is unnecessary); if you invite only derision, that tension
collapses.
And, while Rachel is the best kind of figure in a plot like
this (as with Will Smith’s character, she is the innocent out of water,
ill-equipped for such spy craft), the integral nature of Jerry to the plot
further distances us. The viewer needs to feel “it could be you”. Caruso
achieves that only once, when Jerry arrives home to find his apartment filled
with boxes of high-grade weaponry, airplane manuals and 1200 gallons of
ammonium nitrate fertiliser. It’s the best scene in the movie, where the fear
of being the unwitting patsy, a plaything of remorseless powers-that-be,
strikes home. The sequence also plays into topical conspiracy theories
regarding false flag operations and brainwashed “sleepers” (a phone call comes,
informing “activating” the hapless individual, clearly poised to inflict an
atrocity on home turf). However, seconds later Caruso retreats to the comfort
of sub-Matrix virtual reality; Jerry
replays Neo’s brush with authority (both receive instructions from an
omniscient force, both ignore them in the first instance and must submit to
interrogation).
Some argue that Hollywood, in thrall to the
military-industrial complex, operates a trickle effect of information and
indoctrination, fictionalising just enough of what’s going on to obfuscate the
truth and lend it the distancing of “no that was just in a movie”. Potential
outrage is thus diluted, so the theory goes, and with the finite threat of the
movie world, order is invariably restored at the end (it was just a faction in
the government, one bad apple). That is, unless you’ve taken a trip to the
Parallax Corporation. While there’s undoubtedly some truth to the collusion of
state and corporate interests in the movie industry (hence armed forces
requesting change in scripts before they guarantee free troops and hardware),
attempting to produce a one-size-fits-all scenario, given the vagaries of
La-La-Land, seems like a hiding to nothing.
Of Aria herself, it has been suggested she is an exemplar of
libertarian thinking, antagonistic to big government. I’m not sure the makers
are being quite so partisan in their limited critique. Really, Aria seems to be
a means to highlight that, to an impersonal observer, the US Constitution is a
scrap of paper to be ignored when it suits the nation’s leaders; what would
happen if someone did regard it as
unbendable, and responded with extreme prejudice to those who did not? In concept
she represents a neat device to examine how government inveterately fails to
apply first principles; in execution any impact is lost because the device
itself is too abstract.
Viewed independently, the indiscriminate information
gathering of a surveillance state would logically result in the calling to
account and disavowing a (whichever one is in office at the time, essentially) corrupt
government. If we could see what are our leaders are up to, and the daily
crimes they perpetrate as a matter of course, they would be removed from power
in an instant. The central action that causes Aria’s drastic response hinges
upon the use of unmanned drones to indiscriminately kill innocent civilians (whom,
we are informed, are 51% likely of being bad guys). The employment of which, President
Obama has been driving forward with relish during his tenure (of course, his
are purportedly legitimate targets). Did the makers think they could insert
some serious commentary on the basis that the rest of the picture was
sufficiently dismissible and ludicrous? If so, they fell short, since the
results neither stack up as a thriller nor as insight. The irony of “big
brother” oversight, established to control the populace, turning on its
controllers is rather lost amid the carnage.
A few choice quotes are bundled in during the movie, but there
is no distinct polemic to be found. When Agent Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton)
arrests Jerry he asks him “Who do you
think is winning? Your Miranda Rights or my rights to keep you in this room as
long as I want to?” It’s a fairly direct critique of the indiscriminate
powers of the Patriot Act. In the aftermath, Aria’s demise sees the government
battered but unbowed; “We can’t just stop
intelligence gathering just because of what happened here”. Defence Secretary Callister (Michael Chiklis),
the acceptable and moderate face of a corrupt government, issues a warning that
that stands redolent in the current debate over monitoring powers.
Callister: And we can let their sacrifice remind us
that sometimes, the very safeguards we put in place for our liberty become
threats to liberty itself.
Very sage, I’m sure. The problem is, the movie is 80% a big
ball of dumb with those themes nestling far within it. Caruso has assembled a reasonable
cast, although Le Bouef has the dubious distinction of being a decent actor but
an annoying screen presence. Everyone here is solid, but servicing less than
remarkable material; the same with the director. He can handle the scale and
the spectacle competently enough, but he’s unable to imbue it with any
personality. When a movie emphasises mindless mayhem and grinding clichés (the
attempts to imbue the protagonists with emotional backstories are laughable)
the way this one does, it should come as little surprise that audiences
neglect to embrace its talking points.
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