Eagle Eye (2008)

Directed by: DJ Caruso
Starring: Sheer The Beef, Michelle Monaghan, Vic Mackey and hundreds of CCTV cameras


What's it about? - Two people, seemingly chosen at random, to carry out a terrorist attack

Okay, so it starts with a military operation - wanted arab terrorist returning to a small village for what seems to be a funeral. He's resurfaced after years "underground" and this might be the only time the good old US of A get to take him out once and for all. Problem is, the computer system can't verify for certain whether it is really him and recommends an abort. Vic Mackey, Secretary of Defence agrees but El Presidento via the telephone overrules as it's their best chance for perhaps a few more years and greenlights the strike - BOOM....suspected terrorist and a bunch of innocents obliterated. Sounds familiar, you betcha, it's on the news nearly every day. But, don't forget that this happens because these kind of beginnings in films are always relevant later on.....

And here starts this bewildering techno thriller. Why is it bewildering? Well, it kind of undoes what is a great set up with a massive paradigm shift halfway through. Now, I know films these days require a huge suspension of disbelief, but when you require this suspension after an hour when it was doing okay developing as it was then it really gets fucking annoying. Basically, this goes totally William Webb Ellis halfway through and reinvents the ball game it was playing into something much less rounded and predictable.

Now, as a sci-fi fan I'm used to my far fetched stories, but the difference between your galaxy spanning sci-fi space opera and this is that at least with the former you're prepared for what you're about to see/read....this....well, unless you have spoons for hands and drive around in a clown car then nothing could really prepare for the asshattery that comes after a solid first hour.

The setup is simple - Shia and Monaghan are introduced to us - him a hard up college dropout who finds out that his twin brother has been killed and her a single mother packing her son off to play in his school band at the State of the Union address. As she packs her son onto the train you see some sinister guy make off with her sons trumpet. A few minutes later: Setup 1 happens: Shia has 3/4 million dollars deposited in his account and a whole load of weapons and bomb making equipment planted in his apartment. Then he receives a call from a mysterious woman to tell him to get the fuck out of there as the FBI are on their way....he doesn't, and ends up in an interrogation room where he screams "I've been framed" to Billy Bob Thornton who thinks its related to his dead brother - who was in the Navy. Cue a Navy investigator in on the case too. Shia gets his phonecall and the mysterious woman helps him escape by slamming a massive fucking crane of convenience into the room he's in, nearly killing him.....so he's out and away.

Setup 2: The same woman calls Monaghan and tells her that the train carrying her son will be derailed if she doesn't comply, so she basically does. Her instructions are to take a Porsche Cayenne (you know, the really fucking hideous 4x4) and follow further instructions.....turns out she ends up picking up Shia who avoids breaking his neck in a hefty fall and being hit by a speeding train in the space of a few seconds.

 So there they are together, following instructions in a massive chase. The woman on the phone is controlling everything for them and their getaway is made easy by changing lights to green etc. Even easier when they get to a wrecking yard and the car crushers are on remote control and take out the remaining cop cars. Our two unwilling "terrorists" are away and free to follow the instructions of the mysterious woman. Other players are introduced doing little things and a neat little techno conspiracy is brewing - in kind not too far removed from "Enemy of the State". And then around the halfway mark, the big reveal - in part due to the woman explaining what is going on and in part to the Navy investigator being given special access to a secret level in the Pentagon that holds a superspy computer....as Rolf Harris said "Can you tell what it is yet?".

Of course, it's the fucking superspy computer pulling all the strings and getting unsuspecting people involved in the plot. Totally SkyNet. And now for the unravelling - it needs Shia because his brother worked with the computer  before it killed him for suspecting something was a wry and his eye scan can put her plan into action, and it needs Monaghan to be the carrier of the tiny bomb crystal that is activated by sonic vibrations (her son's trumpet has the trigger in....) that is going to kill the President and other members of the cabinet (except Vic Mackey) all because her "Abort Mission" suggestion at the start of the film was ignored. So, once they're out of the way her plan is to have Mackey as president.....


Wow. Just wow. It's just plain fucking daft once you find out what is actually going on. If you'd found out at the end it might well have been better. I'd have preferred it to have been revealed that it was actually Dougie Howser pulling the strings - it would have made as much sense. I guess I'm annoyed at the damn thing because it was actually promising and quite enjoyable until the carpet disappeared and you realise your house is actually a magic carpet and you're falling towards the ground at an alarming rate only to crash into the second half of this pile of shit.


Overall: 4/10