Watch This: Trailer for Eye in the Sky

Except for the star Helen Mirren, Eye in the Sky isn’t my usual movie type to promote. This military thriller explores some important current moral issues, however, and that makes it interesting to me. Eye in the Sky deals with drone warfare.

The US uses drones to kill people almost every day. It isn’t something that makes the news, but it’s happening. This film looks as the ethical and moral questions raised by this type of warfare.

Drone warfare puts the trigger in the hands of young soldiers who probably got their early training from video games. These soldiers are sitting in the Nevada desert, taking action against targets in Africa or the Middle East. This film is about a drone strike in Kenya.

The people giving the orders to pull those triggers are a handful of officers and others who consider the optics of what they are doing along with the military mission. Personally, I think there needs to be a lot more public discourse about this type of military action. Perhaps this movie will spark that dialog.

In addition to Helen Mirren, the film stars Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, and Barkhad Abdi.

Here’s the description of the film.

Eye in the Sky stars Helen Mirren as Colonel Katherine Powell, a UK-based military officer in command of a top secret drone operation to capture terrorists in Kenya. Through remote surveillance and on-the-ground intel, Powell discovers the targets are planning a suicide bombing and the mission escalates from “capture” to “kill.” But as American pilot Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) is about to engage, a nine-year old girl enters the kill zone triggering an international dispute, reaching the highest levels of US and British government, over the moral, political, and personal implications of modern warfare.

The preview suggests that this film may be a satire along the lines of Dr. Strangelove. I don’t see any hint of that in this preview.

The film is set to release in March 2016.