The Air Force has had cameos in the films like ‘Godzilla,’ ‘Iron Man,’ and an episode or two of ‘Homeland.’
But in ‘Good Kill,’ audiences can zero-in on the drone pilot realm where war becomes an arbitrary arena.
Not before long, U.S. Air Force pilot-turned-drone operator Tom Egan (Ethan Hawke) questions if his ground-based cockpit missions (as one drone pilot calls it “warheads on foreheads”) are too much to handle.
Hawke’s character — logging 3,000 hours in F-16s, six tours and 200 combat sorties — at some point decides that returning to the front lines would be better than his remotely piloted aircraft career.
“I don’t know what it is that I am doing, but it’s not flying,” Egan says as he eyes F-16s on the flight line (most likely Nellis Air Force Base, noting the WA signature on an F-16’s tail).
Egan takes heat from his wife, Molly (January Jones), and his commander, Jack Johns (Bruce Greenwood) as he pushes to be back in the sky. Johns wants to preserve his team, even if the pilots “are a bunch of gamers,” Johns says.
But what Egan longs for most is to lose the cowardice he’s built up for “taking pot shots at somebody halfway around the world,” he says.
From a glance, ‘Good Kill’ manages to get the flight suit garb on point, but viewers can get a better look when the film debuts this April.
‘Good Kill’, directed by Andrew Niccol (‘Gattaca, ‘Lord of War’) and produced by the team from ‘The Hurt Locker,’ strives to answer: If you never face your enemy, how can you face yourself?
Check out the trailer below:
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGGpSemB_hs]
