Drones aren’t going away anytime soon. This new addition to modern warfare adds some science fiction to America’s fighting overseas. So who better to tell the story than the pair behind Gattaca? Ethan Hawke and director Andrew Niccol take the first stab at issues revolving around drone warfare and do a pretty good job filtering it through a compelling character study. Plus, come on, Vegas baby, Vegas!
Thomas Egan (Hawke) is a star drone pilot under Col. Jack Johns (Bruce Greenwood) and the US drone program. On its surface, it sounds like a home run: the program is run from Las Vegas and not in Afghanistan/Iraq, Egan gets to go home to his kids and wife Molly (January Jones) every night, and there is no threat of danger against his life or his families. However, there are signs of problems within and without our hero. The psychological toll mounts from the killing from afar, the conflicts at home and at work have merged, and moral conflicts arise from new pilot Vera Suarez (Zoe Kravitz) and Langley/the CIA (Peter Coyote). These pressures push ground-confined Thomas near his breaking point, as all he wants to do is fly again.
Give credit to Andrew Niccol. Good Kill has a very clear point of view with regards to drone warfare. It is a safe option that keeps many American soldiers from horrors of living in a war zone and can be effectively used in surveillance tactics for war preparation. When weapons enter the picture, however, drone use gets murkier. Because we are far away from the battle, decisions can be made without having to see consequences. At the high level, rules can be twisted very easily to justify slaughter of innocent lives. Good Kill pulls no punches with how power can corrupt what can be a powerful tool into a terrifying machine. The movie paints an indictable picture at the current uses of drones and through the characters asks some serious questions about their role in American military operation.
Ethan Hawke’s Thomas Egan has to represent the changing face of warfare and the consequences of “Good Kill”ing. At work, ethical dilemmas abound. So, I can bomb this building twice to eliminate all these people who we are not fighting but I cannot kill a man who rapes a woman every day because we need intelligence from his boss? Questions like this roll around in Thomas’s unstable head when he goes home every day, carrying the weight of the dead as he tries to find a math tutor, making it impossible to connect with Molly since he has to keep the worlds separate. And underneath it all is Thomas’s insatiable desire to fly, to get the danger back to justify the work he is doing. These conflicts cause Thomas’s stoic persona to drink heavily and become an insomniac. The plight of this poor “pilot” grounds the story, gives it stakes, and lets Niccol make his other points about drones.
Hawke barely says more than a few words at a clip in Good Kill, but his performance is RIVETING. You feel the growing chasm in Hawke’s heart after every kill, and the mounting sadness as he has to morally sacrifice over and over again. Hawke commands the screen with just a soulful look and makes this disenfranchised pilot a very compelling character. Bruce Greenwood always delivers, and his Colonel earns the respect a superior officer should get with truly moving speeches while maintaining independent thought when he can see his team has trouble with their orders. January Jones has the thankless role of wife of a troubled man, but she gives some frank specificity to the character that is sorely needed about an hour in. Zoe Kravitz is solid as well, but she like the rest of the cast gets used as sounding boards for Hawke instead of becoming a real character, a common failing among Niccol female characters.
Good Kill will be the first of many drone movies to come. This effort is a very good start, clearly explaining the macro and micro turmoil that could result from long term operation of these machines. Andrew Niccol and Ethan Hawke bring out the best in each other; if they can somehow work in Richard Linklater and Julie Delpy into their next film, we could have a classic on our hands.