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Director : D.J. Caruso
Producer : Pat Crowley, Alex Kurtzman, Edward McDonnell, Roberto Orci
Screenwriter : John Glenn, Travis Wright, Hillary Seitz, Dan McDermott
Starring : Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thornton, Rosario Dawson, Cameron Boyce, William Sadler, Michael Chiklis, Anthony Mackie, Ethan Embry, Anthony Azizi
Bruce Sterling's 1998 novel Distraction opens with a group of strangers
converging on a bank, each with one specific task. By the time they are done,
the entire bank has been disassembled. While this idea of a smart mob's
destructive power isn't exactly new, Eagle Eye's variations on the concept make
for compelling, if sometimes contrived, cinema.
Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) is an underachiever mourning the recent death of his
overachieving twin brother Ethan. Across town, Rachel Holloman (Michelle
Monaghan) is sending her little boy Sam (Cameron Boyce) on a school band trip.
While Jerry arrives home to find his apartment filled with every piece of
terrorist contraband known to man and a voice on his cell phone telling him to
run, Rachel receives a call telling her to follow instructions or her son's
train will be derailed.
Jerry, at least, disobeys and is captured by the FBI for his trouble. The
mystery caller then enables Jerry's escape by manipulating anything even
remotely computer-controlled in the vicinity and forcing him into a car with
Rachel. With the U.S. government in the form of FBI agent Thomas Morgan (Billy
Bob Thornton) and Air Force intelligence agent Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) hot
on their trail, they are sent on a series of seemingly unrelated missions each
contributing to some mysterious master plan.
Having tackled Rear Window in Disturbia, director D.J. Caruso (again with
LaBeouf) seems poised to undertake North by Northwest this time, but the film
owes as much to Enemy of the State (the phrase is actually used) as any
Hitchcock fare, with a dash of Live Free or Die Hard thrown in for good
measure. But the derivative nature of the plot takes little away from the
enjoyment of the ride. Caruso sets a good pace and never lets up.
As far as action sequences go, Caruso doesn't handle them as ably as he did the
suspense elements in Disturbia. His too-close camerawork often obscures the
geography of the action, muddling, for example, an otherwise clever car chase
where traffic lights become a lethal weapon.
The screenplay, by John Glenn, Travis Wright, Hillary Seitz, and Dan McDermott
(whew!), holds together overall, but it occasionally lapses into sloppy
exposition, lifeless dialogue, and telegraphed plot points. For the most part,
however, the writers keep the audience guessing as to the true nature of the
game that is afoot, finding clever outlets for the cyberterrorism that
alternately aids and coerces our heroes on their journey. Not helping matters
any is the distracting, and in some cases baffling, product placement. Does
Circuit City really want to be identified with a movie where technology poses
so many threats?
The spoiler at the heart of the plot is a bit of a stretch, but the nature of
the film is such that if you're already having fun, you're unlikely to give up
on it by then. But even the greatest suspension of disbelief can't help a
tacked-on cop-out coda. The film would have benefited greatly from ending four
minutes earlier than it does.
With a few more drafts and a dialogue touch-up, Eagle Eye might have been a
great film about the dangers of surveillance and socio-technological networks.
As it is, it's a likable paranoid fantasy that will handily kill a couple of
hours on a Saturday afternoon... before disappearing into the endless data
stream it depicts with such apprehension.
I'd kill for an iPhone.
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" OK "
Rating: PG-13, 2008
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