As this summer’s epic triumph, The
Dark Knight, slowly leaves theatres this fall, it’s
comforting to know that another intelligently-crafted action
blockbuster will be taking its place. While I don’t mean to
equate the sheer fun of Eagle Eye with the
emotionally-jarring mastery of the unforgettable film it will
steal screens from, it is no doubt a deserving film unto its
own. The two share a single refreshing characteristic that
allows me to believe in the idea that Hollywood isn’t done
making significant motion-pictures: they are works of cinema
that manage to be smart and artistic despite the fact that their
main purpose is to be fit for mass-consumption.
Much of the Eagle Eye’s punch
rests in the fact that studio DreamWorks (err… Paramount?) has
managed to keep what the movie is actually about under wraps. In
order to ensure a maximized number of “virgin” movie-going
experiences, I’m not going to say anything more about the plot
than the film’s trailer does. The story follows protagonist
Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf), an aimless young man who has dropped
out of Stanford and distanced himself from his family. Jerry
works a dead-end job at a copy joint and can’t even manage to
make his rent.
Jerry’s life suddenly becomes a bit
more eventful (and dangerous), however, when his twin brother, a
military man, dies. Soon after the funeral, Jerry unknowingly
finds his checking account full of money and his apartment
stocked with hazardous chemicals. Minutes before he’s arrested
for possessing the chemicals—apparently the police were notified
of them before he was—Jerry is called by a mysterious woman
instructing him on how to flee the scene. He doesn’t obey her at
first, but has no choice but to follow her advice when thrust
into a sticky situation when in police custody. The unidentified
caller has a laundry list of things Jerry must do if he doesn’t
want to be killed. To better complete these, he is soon teamed
up with another victim, Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan),
whose son is effectively being held hostage by the all-knowing
(and all-powerful, we learn, as she shows off her ability to
control city stoplights and construction equipment) caller.
Being a smart guy, Jerry gets progressively closer to
discovering why he’s carrying out risky and illegal tasks, and
all explanations seem to point to something high up in the
government. Perhaps his brother’s death wasn’t so random after
all.
I can’t speak in detail about the
movie’s themes regarding the terrifying power of technology when
it is employed by bureaucratic governments without giving too
much away. But I will say that Eagle Eye, despite its
very mainstream popcorn-movie presence, made me think during its
exploration of said themes. Yes, the film overreaches at times
and makes questionable references to the Patriot Act in passing,
but on the whole I admired the its ability to reach for ideas
more substantive than those that the standard sci-fi auctioneer
of its sort usually does. Eagle Eye plays a lot like
2001-lite, and I mean that in a good way.
The movie will also play well to
viewers who aren’t particularly in the mood to think. While it
offers more than mere action, Eagle Eye nonetheless
boasts chase-sequences that are exceptionally well constructed.
These are especially entertaining because they feature not two,
but three parties involved in chases: Jerry and Rachel are most
immediately running from police, but they’re also running from
whoever (or whatever) is giving the police a reason to
run after them. This dynamic proves consistently clever
and—pardon the cliché—keeps the viewer guessing.
While the special effects in Eagle
Eye are every bit as eye-popping as one would expect from a
mega-budgeted picture, the success of the aforementioned action
scenes is largely due in part to the work of two men. The first
is director D.J. Caruso, who finally comes into his own after
making two big pictures (Taking Lives and Disturbia)
that showed undeniable promise but didn’t quite work. Sure,
Caruso lets Eagle Eye go on for about fifteen minutes too
long—it clocks in just past the two-hour mark—but his feel for
pacing and tension-development is mostly spot-on. And he’s aided
by the picture’s other invaluable asset: Shia LaBeouf, who is
able to deliver an involving and sympathetic lead performance
despite his destructive party-boy status in Hollywood. (For the
record, Michelle Monaghan is also good in her role, but she’s
given comparatively little to do and often comes off as
obligatory eye-candy.)
Alfred Hitchcock famously said: “a
good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission
and the babysitter were worth it.” I tend to agree, even if
Hitchock’s criterion is far tougher to meet today than it was in
his time because renting a movie and watching it on a giant
plasma TV is now an easy thing to do. But Eagle Eye meets
Hitch’s requirements; big and impressive and immersive, the
picture merits a night out for nearly any mainstream filmgoer.
It may not be as grand a blockbuster as the one we all saw this
summer was—after all, what is?—but it’s certainly worth seeing.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
Review Published on: 9.21.2008
Screened on: 9.12.2008 at the AMC
Century City 15 in Century City, CA.