While there have been no shortage of lackluster dramas featuring drones, there has yet to be a definitive Saving Private Ryan or Apocalypse Now-type war epic that really brings drama and pathos to drone warfare. Eye in the Sky, opening March 11 in the US (April 8 in the UK), aims to be that movie. And it does a remarkably good job, not only of building tension around the act of firing a missile from a drone, but also of making the bureaucratic arguments behind the drone strike seem as interesting as the action.

Part of the horror of drone warfare is that the drama is one-sided—only the victim has a full story to tell. The drone is emotionless. Even for the drone operator, killing becomes the cold-blooded entry of GPS coordinates, a joystick maneuver, the calm pull of a trigger in a quiet room. If pathos exists within this narrative, it merely runs in parallel to the calculating and detached drone operations.

But with Eye in the Sky, director Gavin Hood tries to capture some of the human emotion that goes on between the command to fire a missile and the pull of the trigger. The plot goes like this: Helen Mirren plays Colonel Katherine Powell, a British military officer who’s been following a number of targets, including a British woman who has been working with Somalian terrorist group al-Shabaab in Kenya. When Powell gets word that a number of her targets, including the British woman, will be meeting at the same house, she asks for assistance from the US military for the capture mission.

Drone pilots Steve Watts (Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad), and Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox), are ordered to keep watch over the target area as the capture plays out. Because it’s a capture mission, Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman, in his last role), has called in various British officials and heads of state to watch the uncontroversial action from a comfortable conference room.

On the ground in Kenya, we’re introduced to a young girl whose father lets her secretly play and study, contrary to what's accepted in the ultra-strict fundamentalist community around them. Two on-the-ground spies, one played by Oscar-nominated actor Barkhad Abdi, provide backup support, occasionally by flying two micro-drones, shaped like a bird and a beetle, onto the properties where the terrorists are meeting.

When the military informants get video evidence that the terrorists are arming men with suicide bomb vests inside a Kenyan house, Powell decides that the terrorists need to be taken out immediately and orders our American drone pilots in a storage shed outside of Las Vegas to "prosecute the target." Just as Watts is about to pull the trigger, releasing a hellfire missile from their Kenya-based Reaper, the young Kenyan girl arrives on the scene with a basket of bread for sale. If the US and UK military blast the terrorists’ compound to bits, the girl will certainly die.

From that point onward, the movie becomes something of a political thriller. Drone pilot Watts demands a reassessment of the casualty estimate for the action he’s about to take, Powell’s legal consultant asks her to refer up for permission to go forward with the drone strike, and the heads of state nervously pass the buck on decision-making to avoid taking responsibility for killing the civilian on the scene.

In a nod to real-life political blowback like the "Collateral Murder" video popularized on Wikileaks, an advisor says he's against firing the missile because he's nervous about the drone footage leaking. Lt. Gen. Benson disdainfully says he's not concerned with postings on YouTube. The foreign minister counters by saying that "revolutions are fueled by postings on YouTube."

Meanwhile, we get a taste of the risks that on-the-ground UK spy Jama Farah suffers. When Farah tries to buy the girl's bread to get her away from the terrorist compound, he's harassed by local militia and chased through the streets. Quickly, the drone pilots are told to train the drone camera off of Farah because he's on his own at that point. And after that quick spurt of action, we're back to hearing phone calls between American and British officials.

The Trolley Problem

In a sense, Eye in the Sky is a fast-paced hashing out of that well-known ethics thought experiment called the Trolley Problem: if you’re on a runaway trolley that’s about to hit five people, do you stay the course and hope for the best or pull a lever that switches you to another set of tracks where you would certainly hit one person? For Eye in the Sky, that dilemma boils down to whether it's better to spare one little girl's life and potentially kill 80 people by suicide bomb or take one little girl's life and potentially save all the people the bomber would have killed.

One issue with reducing the movie down to such a staid dilemma is that much of the audience has undoubtedly already thought about some version of this problem and come to their own conclusion. This might lead to some eye-rolling from those deeply entrenched in their opinions at the movie's need to articulate every issue on each side. (By the middle of the film, I was imagining my fellow viewers internally shouting at the screen "just shoot the missile already!” and others shouting "Can't you just wait for like, a second? The terrorists aren’t blowing anyone up yet, there’s probably another option!”) The movie doesn’t really work to change anyone’s mind about whether sacrificing one girl for the good of the many is the right or wrong course of action, and it doesn't try to temper anyone's strongly held beliefs either.

Ars spoke to Hood by phone in early February, and we asked him about his view on his movie’s version of the Trolley Problem. Although the director declined to offer a clear-cut opinion on what he felt would have been the “right” decision, Hood said that he felt that one of the most poignant parts of the movie was when a British adviser played by Monica Dolan tells the group of officials in the British conference room that she’d save the girl and let the 80 people die in a suicide bombing—not necessarily because the girl’s life is precious but because media reports would then pin the guilt for the bloodbath on the terrorists, which would keep the US and UK military from having to take the blame for the death of one girl.

"In some ways, it’s really cold-hearted," Hood said of Dolan's line. But, he added, several of the movie's characters start to see the advisor's side, admitting that allowing the suicide bombers to kill 80 would be the only way for the West to "win the propaganda war."

Moving past the ethics into the drama

Although the central dilemma that Eye in the Sky explores is a tired one, the editing is sharp, and there's an element of dark humor throughout. It is also Alan Rickman’s last on-screen performance, and he plays it just like you’d expect him to—delivering his lines with signature dry wit. Toward the end of the film, Rickman has a rather poignant moment when he castigates a critical British advisor, reminding her that she should never accuse a soldier of not knowing the cost of war. The line is masterfully delivered and brings gravitas to an intense scene that needed an emotional coda to cap it off.

The real strength of the movie is that it never typecasts its own characters. Helen Mirren's stringent colonel isn't necessarily a warmonger; she has reasons for her unwavering demand that her targets be taken out. Aaron Paul's drone pilot isn't just a bleeding heart; he'll pull the trigger as long as protocol has been followed fully. Even when Eye in the Sky is showing how absurdly drawn out the hand-wringing of the heads of state is, I was left with a sense that this is how the decisions to take a life should work—there are consequences that come with dropping a Hellfire missile on a working-class Kenyan neighborhood, and all of those consequences should be considered.

Ultimately, it seems that Hood has no intention of making any character or concept the villain in Eye in the Sky—not even the concept of war itself.