A gripping, fiercely intelligent and well balanced thriller about the ethical, military, legal, emotional, political and other complications of an operation during the War on Terror. It did feel like an episode of an anthology TV show at times - a self contained, high end one to be sure. Maybe that's because TV is so good these days and films you see in the theatres are generally poor.
I'd never heard of writer Guy Hibbert before but it's a really superb screenplay - appears to be well researched (I'll have to take his word for it!), solidly structured, several characters are superbly sketched out and given empathetic motivations.
It's not a typical gung ho look at military operation, in part because it was made by and is predominantly about British forces (the American politicians are depicted as having none of the moral dilemmas!). The main soldier is a woman, Helen Mirren; the drone pilots include Aaron Paul, reluctant to kill a kid, and co pilot Phoebe Fox; the Somalian agent on the ground, Barkhad Abdi (I'm glad that actor got another gig!); minister Jeremy Northam is constantly trying to pass the buck; Monica Dolan is the voice of small l liberalism; general Alan Rickman is not a monster; foreign secretary Iain Glenn has food poisoning. Really worth looking at.
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