Metacritic reviews

Aaron Paul has key scenes as the drone pilot who actually has to pull the trigger, but it’s the late Alan Rickman, as Mirren’s superior, who steals the film.

A rivetingly suspenseful drama that deftly intertwines elements of ticking-clock thriller and tragic farce.

South African director Gavin Hood (“X-Men Origins: Wolverine’’) pulls off some really tricky tonal shifts.

Eye in the Sky aims to thrill and covertly manages to inform simultaneously.

This picture satisfies fully on entertainment terms without cheapening its real-world concerns.

Director Gavin Hood treats the aesthetics of high-tech surveillance as the opaque membrane through which the prosecution of the War on Terror must pass.

While certainly imperfect, there is something to admire about the film’s attempt to present the tangled logistics of a single military operation, where it seems everyone wants success but none of the responsibility of the tough decision making involved.

Eye in the Sky is a tick-tock suspense exercise as well as a neat little ethical echo chamber, a plea for reason in a world exploding too vigorously to give it the time of day.

There’s wit, integrity and insight here, but it cries out for a lighter touch.

While Eye In The Sky is effective in building suspense and making a talk-y drama compelling, these techniques are in service to high-minded, heavy-handed filmmaking that buries troubling wartime questions in simplistic rhetoric.