Eagle Eye
EAGLE EYE
PARAMOUNT
RELEASED 17 October 2008
Every day, hundreds of satellites circle our planet, bouncing around electronic information to television companies, mobile phone networks, and government security agencies. We’ve seen this technology used in recent movies like ‘Enemy of the State’ and the ‘Bourne’ trilogy, and now ‘Eagle Eye’ takes the notion of non-stop surveillance to the nth degree.
Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) works a dead-end job in the local print shop, but when his twin brother is killed while on service in the Army, his life turns upside down. $751,000 suddenly appears from nowhere into his bank account, and returning home from the funeral, he finds his rented apartment filled to the brim with high-tech weapons and explosives. Wondering what the hell to do, his phone rings and a calm female voice tells him the FBI are thirty seconds from breaking down his door and that he must run. Ignoring the call, the FBI do indeed break in and place Shaw into custody. Insisting he knows nothing about what is happening, when Shaw finally gets his statutory phone call, the female voice turns up on the other end again and tells Jerry he must jump out of the window! Without divulging the specifics, Jerry is soon thrust together with Rachel (Michelle Monaghan), who has also been contacted by the mysterious lady caller and has her own tasks to perform. Together they are led on a wild chase across town where traffic lights turn green for them, public plasma screens display messages indicating which direction to take, and a whole scrapyard takes on a life of it’s own tearing up pursuing police cars like a giant Transformer. Someone appears to be hacking into every available computer network and has a very clear goal for our reluctant couple.
‘Eagle Eye’ is an extremely silly techno action thriller that does at least entertain with it’s fast pace, car crunching action sequences, and the occasionally sarcastic quip from the pursuing FBI agent played by Billy Bob Thornton (displaying a disturbing pair of blinding white caps on his front teeth!). Whilst the situations Jerry finds himself in become ever more ridiculous as the movie continues, there is the nagging feeling that our bad guy seems to be just a bit too all-powerful and all-seeing, so it’s something of a disappointment when the seemingly unbeatable villain is dispatched with relative ease. Shia LaBeouf plays virtually the same character he’s played in every movie over the last two years, and although perfectly fine, it is wearing a bit thin and he needs to start shaking his roles up or he’ll be yesterday’s news, fast. Monaghan is cute but forgettable, and Rosario Dawson and Michael Chiklis are on the side of the government.
The film does almost change genre towards the end, with the villain bearing a strong similarity to a classic Stanley Kubrick villain, but this is a by-the-numbers, crash-and-bang Hollywood movie of the week which probably won’t hold up too well on repeat viewings, lacking the necessary script, tightly staged set-pieces, or moral questions it would need to be more than the sum of it’s parts.
The world is indeed a heavily-monitored place with a Big Brother camera lurking around every corner, but this nightmarish scenario envisaged by ‘Eagle Eye’ really belongs in the science fiction category rather than the civil liberties section, and should be allowed some ‘viewer leniency’ regarding the more outlandish moments. There are many plot holes if you go looking for them!
THREE OUT OF FIVE
