20141002: Drama Review--Drones

Drones

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 79 minutes, drama, thriller.
2. IMDB: 4.5/10.0 from 223 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 33% on the meter; 32% liked it from 121 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.7/5.0 from 45,118 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Rick Rosenthal.  Written by Matt Witten.
6. Starring: Matt O'Leary as Jack Bowles, Eloise Mumford as Sue Lawson, Whip Hubley as Colonel Wallace, William Russ as General Lawson, Amir Khalighi as Mahmoud Khalil.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Jack Bowles flies drone missions because he is good at games and using game controllers.  He's better at it than most career military personnel.  However, his gamer attitudes and general lack of maturity leave him little likelihood of advancement in the ranks.  Sue Lawson is gung-ho military, but she has a detached retina which takes her out of being an in-the-air pilot.  So, she's paired with Jack and is his superior officer.  He's more experienced and skilled in flying remote drone missions.


2. The awkwardness of their getting to know each other is almost tangible, rather like discovering one has stepped hard on someone else's used and discarded chewing gum.  Fortunately, that phase ends while they are flying recon against a target (Mahmud Kahlil) in the Middle East.


3. The pair misidentify a civilian as the target, and alert their superiors, who alert their superiors.  When the protagonists rescind their initial assessment, they receive verbal fire in return.


4. Will the pair destroy their target and avoid killing civilians?  Will the translations from Pashto be accurate enough?  Will the moral debate ever end? Will the protagonists follow orders even if it means killing civilians?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Drone operators debate moral issues during a mission.
2. One of ten. Two black holes for sound and acting.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 Ugly as anything; then again, so was the film's subject.


2. Sound: 2/10 I can usually make out the dialogue, but the music in the sound track is annoying.  Also, the sound levels are quite variable.  To keep up with the voice but avoid being blasted out by the music, one needs to be on the volume control often.


3. Acting: 0/10 The acting might have gone better with a different director.  In any case, the acting in this film was truly bad.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Will a colonel actually try to convince a lieutenant of a procedural point during a mission execution?  Sue beats up Jack?  I do not believe it.  Will the military lose chain of command this easily?  MPs were sent, but did not replace the errant pair? This seems unlikely.