Eagle Eye
Last year, John McClane helped America avoid a national disaster of the most heightened technological proportions in “Live Free of Die Hard.” Although his efforts may have driven to an improbable level of reality, the action film delivered a sprawling plot of intricacies that kept the audience devouring each revealing plot point. The same still remains to be said about the similar technological thriller called “Eagle Eye.”
“Eagle Eye” is Hollywood’s answer to America’s own paranoia. It begins intriguingly when a normal teenager, Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) is framed as a terrorist. With an arsenal of tactical weapons and forged passports appearing in his apartment, Jerry immediately ends up on America’s most wanted list. When Agent Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton) refuses to believe his story, Jerry’s only choice is to follow the blackmailing commands of a mysterious caller on the other end of his cellphone. As the caller seems to be controlling every route on Jerry’s escape, questions grow in the audience as much as the characters.
Nearly half of the film clunks along without any further revelations in the plot. It isn’t until far after Jerry meets another blackmailed player (Michelle Monaghan) in the caller’s game, when answers start to arrive in the form of an insipid plot twist. Although it features uniquely choreographed action sequences along the way, the twist feels like an excuse for visuals rather than the conceptual idea writers were going for.
For as powerful as “Eagle Eye” presents technology, its story feels like it was slapped together by the lifeless technology it’s openly trying to give life to. Even the relatively short runtime that clocks in just under two hours grows tiresome without any sense of direction from the plot.
It’s no surprise “Eagle Eye” rides the post 9/11 paranoia ideas of more thought provoking films. When “Eagle Eye” switches from an intriguing thriller, to a technological science fiction film, the transformation is hardly imaginative. With more films like this, there won’t be much disbelief left to suspend.
Eagle Eye
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, and for language
Runtime: 118 min.
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thornton, and Rosario Dawson
Directed by J.D. Caruso
