Release Date: September 23, 2008 Studio: Dreamworks MPAA Rating: PG-13 Genre: Thriller •
Action •
Adventure Director: D.J. Caruso Writers: John Glenn, Travis Wright, Hilary Seitz, Dan McDermott Cast: Shia LeBeouf, Michelle Monahan, Rosario Dawson,Michael Chiklis,Billy Bob Thornton Synopsis: Jerry (Shia LeBeouf) Shaw and Rachel (Michelle Monaghan ) Holloman's lives will never be the same after a mysterious voice on their phones brings them together to embark on cross-country journey in this slam-bang thriller from the director of DISTURBIA. The Review: Remember the scene in WANTED when broke loser Wesley Gibson went to the ATM and, instead of finding he was overdrawn again, suddenly found he had hundreds of thousands of dollars in his account and the machine started spitting money at him?
Remember in THE MATRIX when Neo is at his job and he gets this Fed- Ex package, and in it is a cell phone and it rings just as he takes it out of the envelope?
Remember that scene in, I dunno, that Stallone flick DAYLIGHT and that other movie with that guy, where there’s this explosion in a tunnel and he has to outrun the ensuing big fireball ?
Remember Sam Witwicky in TRANSFORMERS and there’s this part where he’s running and saying “No no no no no no no no no”?
Well, if you saw those movies, chances are you'll really like EAGLE EYE.
EAGLE EYE opens in Afghanistan and in the bowels of the Pentagon as US high muckety-mucks, including the rocky countenance of Michael Chiklis, are trying to decide if they should activate a remote control bombing of a suspected terrorist. It’s difficult to decide because the facial recognition software they employ can’t get better than an 80% match on the guy on the ground and what they think the bad guy in question looks like. I’m amazed they could get that level of resolution at the altitude they were looking from, but hey-it’s just a movie, right? Mr. Chiklis calls the President--What do we do? Do we blow this guy up ? Do we bust him for ripping the Do Not Remove tags off of his pillows? What?
I think that was what was happening, anyway.
At the time, it was a little difficult to concentrate on the actual movie because the projectionist had no idea:
1. The size of the screen he was to project the film on.
2. The aspect ratio of the film being shown.
3. Where the top of the projected image was supposed to be.
4. Where the bottom of the projected image was supposed to be.
5. There’s a little button you can push which will make those curtains on the sides of the screen move to the side.
I’d like to thank the wonderful and awesome Ginni who did the heroic duty of leaving the movie several times to correct and re-correct and re-re-correct the picture problems.
Following the prologue (and a nearly correct framing of the image on screen), EE introduces us to Jerry Shaw (Shia LeBeouf) , a down-on-his-luck young man. Nevertheless, he’s very intelligent , a little cocky and working far below his abilities at a copy shop. He’s predictably broke, living in an apartment so small that it begs for one of those: his apartment was so small...how small was it jokes. As he tries to fast-talk his apartment manager into believing he’ll be able to pay the rent for the month , his phone rings and Jerry receives word that his twin brother has died.
Director D.J. Caruso (DISTURBIA) gets high points for framing Jerry getting the bad news only as a silhouette, crumpling in the tiny hallway. And Shia really shines in the next scene as Jerry enters the church for his brother’s service; his steps falter as he approaches the open casket; his tears fall like rain drops, beautifully caught in the light streaming through the church windows.
It was a smart move to show Jerry so vulnerable, so early in the film and Shia is completely believable in his grief.
Jerry goes home and has a terrible, not-quite-a-reconciliation with his father played by William (Heywood in SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) Sanderson, and reluctantly accepts a $1,000.00 check from his worried old man.
He hits the ATM to deposit the check only to find his account balance has gone up by about $750,000 dollars and the over-eager machine begins to spew gobs of cash to the gob-smacked Jerry.
He goes home to pay his sweet landlady, paying little mind to her babbling about signing for packages, big packages, little packages, boxes, envelopes, crates, barrels and stuff like that there.
He enters his humble room to see it looks like Pottery Barn’s Home Terrorist Cell ensemble : Hi-tech weapons, five different kinds of passports, silver briefcases, home Stinger missile kits, guns, rifles, bags of Ammonium Nitrate--you know, that fertilizer you can make bombs with, and it’s all addressed to him.
What the hell?
His phone rings and a very friendly, but firm female voice informs him that the FBI is going to be breaking into his room in 29 seconds....
“Who is this?” he asks.
“What is all this stuff?”
“ What are you talking about?”
27 seconds...26 seconds...
The Feds bust in on schedule and since he didn’t follow the directions of that mystery phone chick, Jerry is captured and turned over to FBI Agent Thomas Morgan (Angela Jolie’s Ex-ex—Billy Bob Thornton).
Thanks to the Patriot Act , Morgan doesn’t care if Jerry says he’s innocent nor does he care if Jerry really is innocent-none of it matters, because he has everything he needs to send him away.
Did you know that the words “ USA" and "Patriot” in The USA Patriot Act are acronyms? They are. The full name is The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. Wow. And I just thought the name was nothing but sheer jingoistic nonsense. I’m sorry. Where were we?
Lucky for Jerry and fans of Rosario Dawson, Air Force Office of Special Investigation Special Agent Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) shows up. She is an Air Force higher up and she and FBI guy Thomas begin to fight over who gets custody of Jerry.
At this point, the mysterious all knowing all seeing –-whatever--that is controlling the plot, grants Jerry his phone call. He gets on the line and his mystery voice instructs him to “Duck!” because a gigantic freaking Crane is about to smash into the side of the building!
Oh, yeah, meanwhile , a second parallel story of single mother Rachel Holloman(Michelle Monaghan) has been chugging along through the film. She’s got a “cute” kid (Sam) who’s in a primary school band that is so good (or so bad--you never know) they have been invited to tour and play in Washington, DC. She sees him off at the train station, as does her deadbeat ex-husband (Craig), who shows up, just long enough for the audience to hate him and wonder “wasn’t that guy in RENT?” in equal measures.(He wasn't.)
At the train station, another mysterious man picks up Sam’s trumpet case and takes off . We follow him for awhile but I’m sticking with Rachel, because she’s cuter. Out for a well-deserved night with the girls, Rachel gets a phone call from a mysterious woman. The voice tells her to go outside and to check out the images on the plasma screens across the street . It’s Sam on the train, blissfully unaware that he’s become a pawn in this increasingly convoluted storyline.
According to the woman, if Rachel doesn’t go hop into a waiting car and drive to a specific location, then Sam is toast.
Jerry, now on the run, is directed to an intersection and a car and who should be in the car but the lovely Rachel! They spend their first five minutes screaming at each other—he thinks she’s his voice on the phone and she thinks he is responsible for Sam’s predicament. I’d love to read the script for this part of the flick just to get a sense of the total word count. The obligatory big car chase then starts up and even though it was a little THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS , more flashing lights, than substance, I really didn’t care.
I loved this one shot where, as the cars were zooming forward, the camera zoomed backward.Cool.
Somewhere in this goulash of story, we learn that the title EAGLE EYE refers to a Pentagon/Homeland Security project--a really massive computer system that is able to pick up all electronic data throughout the United States.
What does it monitor? Every cell phone call, text message,internet search, all computer use, all linked video cameras and security cams, all radio broadcasts, television transmissions, satellite data and I could go on and on, but you get the picture. It was designed to analyze the data and perceive potential threats to national security and then send that data to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
For the visual representation of what this looks like, think the cell phone sonar imaging device that Batman and Lucius Fox use at the end of THE DARK KNIGHT and Cerebro, the funny headgear that Professor X employed in X-MEN 2 to locate mutants around the globe.
What does Jerry and Rachel and Sam and that guy who stole Sam’s trumpet that I didn’t write about earlier have to do with Eagle Eye ? I’m not telling you anything but, just remember: Regime change begins at home.
The Eagle Eye computer that causes all the troubles in the film is much closer to something out of “Star Trek” , even though its evil Red Eye is an homage to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. It has a pitch perfect duplication of human speech, the ability to react, process and play with others with the most perfect voice recognition software ever, use an astounding degree of A.I. (Artificial intelligence-not the Spielberg flick) including independent thought, making moral judgments, and is able process real-time information on, say , a cop car going 80 miles an hour. Most astoundingly it is able to mastermind a plan so complex it took four Hollywood scriptwriters to hash it out for your enjoyment.
The computer’s voice is so pleasing, I wouldn’t surprised to see a deleted scene on the DVD where we learn that its been hiring itself out to 900 and 976 phone sex lines.
Eagle Eye’s voice is uncredited on imdb.com, but Rosario Dawson at the premiere said it was Julianne Moore. Thanks Rosario. I owe you one.
EAGLE EYE has a lot of exciting sequences: there’s a chase and a scuffle (boy, talk about fight or flight) on an airport’s luggage conveyor belts, Shia does lots of running, a remote control bomber strafes Jerry in the middle of DC rush hour traffic and, as Jerry and Rachel walk in a dried field underneath huge power lines, a delivery van approaches them rapidly, in a scene so reminiscent of David Fincher's SE7EN , I was tempted to scream “ Don’t look in the box!” at the screen.
This looks like this is director D.J. Caruso’s fourth film and he knows how to put together a good action flick. Thank goodness Caruso's directorial style isn’t self-servingly flashy like Michael Bay and can put together a film which nicely incorporates softer character moments with the heart-pumping action.
Good Job.
What can I say about Shia? Well, I’m not going to be writing a love letter to the guy like my wife did, but I’ve been pleased with all his recent work,including EAGLE EYE. He’s very charming in an old fashioned kind of way. He’s not too cool or slick--some pretty boy dillweed like Ashton Kutcher, and sensitive,too, but he's not Toby Maguire, either.
Michelle Monahan, who has played opposite Patrick Dempsey in MAID OF HONOR (didn’t see it) and Tom Cruise in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III (haven’t seen it, but it is on my Netflix queue) , gave a strong and well-grounded performance. In addition to her acting chops, Miss Monahan is very cute with big, wide-set eyes, a impossibly pert nose and a smattering of freckles.
I’ve only seen Micheal Chilkis in THE FANTASTIC FOUR and frankly, I think his Thing is too loud and too gravel voiced, but he was really good with this material.
In honor of Rosario Dawson’s fine performance in EAGLE EYE, I decided to write a poem dedicated to her.
R is for Rosario Dawson, I wrote this poem for you.
O is for Oh--Rosario Dawson, I'm writing a poem for you. S is for Sappho who never got to write about Rosario Dawson , but I do. A is for Ahhh, forget it.
I have fond feelings about Ms, Dawson and completely believed she was a Air Force Office of Special Investigation Special Agent even if I have no idea what that means.
Billy Bob Thornton’s enjoyably wry characterization called to mind the prickly lawman that Tommy Lee Jones played in THE FUGITIVE and was a lot of fun to watch.
My final casting notes are actually two questions :
Who is Lindsay Corinn Luecht (the redheaded beauty on the train at the beginning of the film) and why isn't she in more movies--like all of them?
EAGLE EYE is a fast-paced action thriller that will keep you seriously entertained. Sure the plot is a load of hooey, but the screenwriting team/law firm of John Glenn, Travis Wright, Hilary Seitz and Dan McDermott keep things moving quickly, provide snappy dialogue and they've created sympathetic characterizations that are solid enough to keep your interest all the way through.
Go see it!
PS.You might even spend a few minutes on the way home from the theater considering our reliance on cell phones and other electronic devices that our government may be monitoring right now and/or consider the consequences of the Patriot Act.
Do the ends of stopping Terrorism justify taking away so many of the freedoms laid down in The Bill of Rights?
You know what Nietzsche said, right?
" Fight not with monsters lest ye become a monster."
And don't forget: The first rule of Monster Fight Club is you don't talk about Monster Fight Club! Rating:
