Review of Good Kill (2015) by Dominic A — 21 Apr 2015

This movie is good, and should be seen by anyone who claims to be aware of the state of the world and the never ending war on terror, but it could be better.

Good Kill follows the tortured daily routine of Ethan Hawke as a high ranking pilot who has ended up stuck flying drone missions and in the process, murdering numerous people a day with merely a joystick.

While the actual plot is rather monotone, this does not matter for the first 2/3 of the movies. We hang on the edge of our seats at the intense drama that inevitably comes with the subject at hand. The high points of the movie occur in a tiny control room trailer and the action is merely shown through computer monitors. But this is the brilliance, the movie addresses how mundane the character's daily task seems in their reality, while addressing the reality of what is actually going on. A quote by Zoë Kravitz which sums this up after one such scene: "Did we just commit a war crime?".

While he is surrounded by a strong supporting cast, Ethan Hawke carries this movie. He is not a particularity likable character, but the movie does not try to portray him as such. He is no hero either. He's just a solider and he is able to accept that all in the world is not perfect. But as his dream of returning to real flying seems more and more distant and the ethics of his missions become increasingly dubious, one fully empathizes with his conundrum. This movie is very different from American Sniper, but some inevitable parallels do emerge.

The weakness is however the actually story and events that occur in Ethan Hawk's character's life. While this is merely the canvas on which this expose about drone strikes is painted, by the end we sense the writer's panic. They realize that this movie cannot just end with Ethan Hawke drunkenly driving through Las Vegas in self-pity, as he does many times. So stuff happens, and its all rather cliché. This could have been forgiven for a less important movie. But such a powerful movie deserved a much stronger story.