movie review good kill

Written and directed by “ Gattaca ” filmmaker and “ The Truman Show ” screenwriter Andrew Niccol , “Good Kill” is an intelligent but not terribly effective drama. And its discussion of military ethics, especially with regard to what it means to be able to kill people without physical consequences, is promising, but it does not go far enough.

The hero is Thomas Egan, a former Air Force pilot who now operates (“flies” feels like the wrong word) armed drones. As you might imagine, the experience is a bit like playing a very supple and complex videogame, but with real consequences: when you press a button and fire a missile, people actually die. The use of armed drones in war and extrajudicial assassinations has found its way into many a high-tech movie thriller and television series. It’s a key part of Showtime’s “Homeland,” which often depicts CIA officers debating whether to fire missiles at terrorists, suspected terrorists, people who might know suspected terrorists, and for that matter, pretty much anyone deemed a threat to the security of the United States (whatever higher-ups have decided that means).

The murkiness behind all that reasoning is at the center of “Good Kill.” Egan is experienced at killing people from a distance, be they enemy pilots or people in structures on the ground, but drones represent an incremental moral and philosophical widening of the gulf between the people who order violence committed, the people who commit it, and the people it affects. Egan gets lost in the gulf, untethered from any possibility of moral reckoning, and that’s his main problem. The best parts of the film evoke the almost Kafka-esque moral confusion of Steven Spielberg’s “ Munich ,” where a group of state-sponsored avengers got a place where they weren’t entirely sure who they were being asked to murder or what the targets were supposed to be guilty of.

Egan lives in a Las Vegas suburb with his wife Molly ( January Jones of “Mad Men”), drinks heavily to numb his guilt, and commutes to a nearby base, where he dons a headset, stares a viewscreens and virtually flies drones with a joystick, directing fire at targets picked by “Langley.” That’s the name of the city that houses CIA headquarters, but because it’s represented by the distinctive voice of Peter Coyote , it becomes indistinguishable from the name of a character; this is a nifty way of personifying a faceless bureaucracy, though of course that neat trick underscores the maybe-irresolvable problems that prevent this movie from being as emotionally wrenching as you may want it to be. Drama tends to be most involving when you’re watching individuals interact with each other directly. Egan’s predicament has hints of Orwell and Kafka. Communication turns to mush in his ears and mind. The language and acronyms he hears every day are designed to make the ritual of killing a bunch of strangers from thousands of miles away feel as mundane as deciding to buy an office chair online with a mouse-click.

But is drone warfare really a vastly greater outrage, or ethical problem, than any other kind of state-sponsored violence? It might be, but while “Good Kill” seems to insist that it is, it never convincingly makes the case, which remains too strongly rooted in Egan’s understandably fuzzy malaise. Egan’s desire to get back into an actual cockpit (a request that his commanding officer, played by Bruce Greenwood , refuses to support) feels like a half-measure. It’s the best he can do under the circumstances: he’s not a hero of deep imagination, and he’s also a career military man who can’t imagine any other kind of life for himself.

But is it really substantially more moral to kill people from a jet flying over a battlefield than from an air-conditioned office in Nevada? The same arguments against the impersonality of killing were raised when machine-guns were invented over 150 years ago, and used in combat against enemies that Gatling gun operators could actually see, and who could at least shoot back. For that matter, a version of these problems get raised and argued about whenever there’s a new evolutionary development in warfare that makes it possible for one person to kill many people from far away: the longbow, the cannon, artillery, aerial bombing, the list goes on.

Niccol gets into some of this, mainly in a few long monologues, but for the most part it remains at the periphery, which seems odd considering that he’s deliberately made an “issue” picture here. I don’t want to minimize the sense of concern or alarm expressed by people who have a problem with drone warfare.  I’m just saying that the film makes some intriguing opening arguments and then reiterates them for a couple of hours, rather than elaborating.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

• Bruce Greenwood as Lieutenant Colonel Jack Johns
• Zoë Kravitz as Aviateur Vera Suarez
• Jake Abel as M.I.C. Joseph Zimmer
• January Jones as Molly Egan
• Ethan Hawke as Commandant Tom Egan
• Andrew Niccol

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Thought-provoking, timely, and anchored by a strong performance from Ethan Hawke, Good Kill is a modern war movie with a troubled conscience.

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Summary In the shadowy world of drone warfare, combat unfolds like a video game–only with real lives at stake. After six tours of duty, Air Force pilot Tom Egan (Ethan Hawke) yearns to get back into the cockpit of a real plane, but he now fights the Taliban from an air-conditioned box in the Las Vegas desert. When he and his crew start taking o ... Read More

Directed By : Andrew Niccol

Written By : Andrew Niccol

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Major thomas egan, january jones, zoë kravitz, airman vera suarez, fatima el bahraouy, el khttabi abdelouahab, bruce greenwood, lt. colonel jack johns, m.i.c. joseph zimmer, ryan montano, airman roy carlos, dylan kenin, capt. ed christie, stafford douglas, zion rain leyba, travis egan, sachie capitani, michael sheets, chakir faiz, peter coyote, colin jones, kristen devore rakes, kevin wiggins, trooper morgan, alma sisneros, emily james, critic reviews.

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Review: ‘Good Kill,’ with Ethan Hawke, targets human costs of drone warfare

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Form matches content in “Good Kill,” a movie about the desensitizing effects of drone warfare. Repeated, suffocating scenes of remote warfare make you acutely aware of the soul-draining despair felt by its pilot protagonist.

That makes writer-director Andrew Niccol’s achievement notable, even if his movie sometimes feels as stifling as the shipping container that Air Force pilot Tom Egan (Ethan Hawke) and his team occupy in the desert outside Las Vegas.

Egan works a 12-hour shift flying unmanned aerial vehicles over Afghanistan and Yemen, performing surveillance and launching missiles toward sites that may (or may not) be occupied by Taliban forces. There’s a lot of killing, all of it deemed “good” and “necessary.” When he’s done, Egan drives home to the suburbs to his wife (January Jones) and kids, puts some burgers on the grill and helps with homework.

The contortions needed to make that kind of compartmentalization work are nearly impossible for a man like Egan, a veteran of six tours, a pilot who misses the fear of combat and, yes, flying an actual plane — an idea that Niccol, showing F-16s gathering dust on the base, implies is almost ludicrous.

“We’ve got no skin in the game,” Egan tells his commander (Bruce Greenwood). “I feel like a coward every day.”

Though Egan is a man of few words (he becomes even quieter when he’s angry, his wife tells a friend), the movie makes up for his reserve by explaining and informing to a fault. You will possess a clearer understanding of the ins and outs, the pros and cons of drone warfare after viewing “Good Kill,” but the arguments sometimes feel like talking points awkwardly wedged into the action.

Where Niccol (“Gattaca”) succeeds is in creating an atmosphere of self-loathing, both for those manning the drones and the audience watching them work. Midway through the movie, the CIA takes over command of the missions, ordering a series of killings that are debatable on moral and strategic grounds. (“Permission to prosecute” is the dispassionate order coming from Langley in a voice that feels modeled on HAL 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”) Niccol conveys this chilling disconnect, showing how the ease of their actions absolves the participants of responsibility and robs them of their humanity.

That cost can be seen in the tight strain on Hawke’s face. An actor with the gift of gab (most notably in his collaborations with Richard Linklater), Hawke here delivers a nuanced turn as a man on the threshold of emotional ruin. It’s not that Egan opposes war. He’s begging to be shipped out for another tour. He just can’t wrap his head around what war has become.

“Drones aren’t going anywhere,” says his commander. “In fact, they’re going everywhere.”

“Good Kill” forces us to deal with the implications of that new reality.

----------------

‘Good Kill’

MPAA rating: R, for language, sexuality, violent content including rape

Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes

Playing: Arclight Hollywood

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Good Kill Review

10 Apr 2015

102 minutes

Ripped from the headlines, Good Kill is as terrifying as it is timely. Reuniting with his Gattaca compadre Ethan Hawke, writer-director Andrew Niccol drills down into the moral and psychological murk of drone warfare with a cool head and a tight grip. The filmmaker is cleaving to his previous sci-fi vibes (the dystopian feel of Gattaca, the omnipotent surveillance of The Truman Show) but locating it firmly in the here and now. Good Kill makes it painfully clear that death by joystick is no longer the province of the PS4.

The movie is at its best in the hothouse environment of the bland drone cubicles. Early on, the film is so forensic and fascinating about detailing the process of remote strikes that by the end of the movie you feel like you could tackle one yourself. This pays dividends when Hawke’s pilot Thomas Egan is co-opted to fly missions under orders from the CIA (the cold disembodied voice on the phone is played by Peter Coyote) as the off-the-record missions and practices become increasingly dubious. The cool calm routine we’ve become accustomed to takes on a more tense sinister edge.

Hawke, on a roll after Boyhood and Predestination, is terrific. In green fatigues and Aviator glasses, Egan is Maverick past his prime, wrestling with the after-effects of modern warfare now the thrill and immediacy of actual combat have been taken away. Hawke makes his slide from hard as nails military type to self-loathing wreck believable and affecting. January Jones plays effective riffs on her housewife-in-meltdown mode from Mad Men and Zoe Kravitz is a sparky presence as Egan’s equally troubled co-pilot.

Some of it feels over-egged; a sub-plot involving Egan’s involvement with a victimized villager is a tad trite, but for the most part it is a model of tact and complexity. Niccol keeps his political posturings to a minimum and is alive to the thin line dividing so called terrorists and so called peacekeepers. For a film about the distancing effect of technology, it keeps things very human.

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Good Kill review

Ethan Hawke stars in Good Kill, a drama-thriller from Gattaca director Andrew Niccol. Here's Ryan's review of a gripping film...

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Writer-director Andrew Niccol is best known for his contribution to the sci-fi genre: In Time, the classic Gattaca and the elegant script for Peter Weir’s The Truman Show to name a few.

Good Kill isn’t a science fiction film, but its premise could easily come from a dystopian novel – or a darkly prophetic story by Philip K Dick.

Ethan Hawke plays Major Thomas Egan, a veteran pilot who controls unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones, as they’re often dubbed by the media) as they circle the skies of the Middle East. At the orders of those higher up the command chain, these drones can strike targets from 10,000km in the air – so high that someone on the ground could look up and not even see the craft gliding above them.

Egan works in one of dozens of windowless, air-conditioned units parked on an air base outside Las Vegas, where old fighter jets are parked up, no longer used. Egan once flew them himself; now, he’s a bird of prey with his wings clipped, sitting in a chair and zapping enemies with his joystick from the comfort of an office chair. At the end of each shift, he clocks off, jumps in his black muscle car and drives home to his wife (January Jones) and two kids.

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Approaching his subject matter like a journalist, Niccol offers up a stark depiction of a new form of technological warfare – one most audience members will perhaps only know from news bulletins. We’ve all seen footage of the drones now commonly used by the military: pale, sleek, and like Egan’s control centre, eerily windowless. Niccol tells the story of the people who have their hands on the joystick, peering down like gods on the Middle Eastern towns and cities below, and occasionally raining down their deadly bolts of lightning.

As the quietly embittered Colonel Jack Johns (Bruce Greenwood) observes, the job’s like playing a videogame, except the targets Egan and his fellow recruits are firing at aren’t a cloud of pixels, but human beings whose allegiances are seldom clear. Egan’s job strips the danger from his job as a pilot, and with it, a sense of pride. How can there be pride and honour in killing an enemy that can’t fight back, that he can see with his own eyes isn’t even an immediate threat? Gradually, and understandably, the detached killing of suspected members of the Taliban and al Qaida crawls under Egan’s skin, and his seemingly idyllic home life begins to unspool.

Ethan Hawke is outstanding as the middle-aged former pilot, who harbours a longing to climb back in the cockpit and fosters a growing horror at his new role as a drone operator. With his shades, precise haircut and blue jeans, Hawke perfectly inhabits his role, painting a portrait of an all-American archetype who, in Niccol’s story, is now surplus to requirements. Everyone still wears their flight suits, perhaps because of tradition, even though they could just as easily be wearing a shirt and tie like the astronauts in Gattaca.

Niccol captures the chilling detachment of Egan’s job: the Rear Window -like sense of voyeurism as he watches people milling around on the ground below, and the ruthless efficiency of acquiring a target, pulling the trigger, and waiting for the ten agonising seconds it takes for the missile to hit the ground. That we only see the destruction from Egan’s point of view makes these sequences all the more disturbing, as does Amir Mokri’s photography, which cuts dizzyingly from fuzzy in-flight shots of burned-out desert buildings and smoking bodies to the sharp azure skies of Las Vegas.

In terms of human drama, Good Kill swims in familiar water – domestic bust-ups, suspected adultery, booze in the bathroom, and so forth –  but Hawke’s too smart an actor to not give his character an added edge, something extra we haven’t seen before. It really is a great performance. I’m not sure we really needed the (admittedly low-key) frisson of attraction between Hawke and Zoe Kravitz’s new recruit, Vera Suarez, but it’s only a minor distraction. Maybe Kravitz’s character serves to underline that the crisis Egan’s going through isn’t a sexual, midlife-crisis, but one of morality and honour.

Some characters in Good Kill argue that the use of UAVs makes perfect tactical sense: they’re a relatively cheap, reliable and low-risk means of spotting potential terrorist activity and eliminating it. But Niccol makes no secret of how drone warfare could be misused: he depicts an Orwellian perpetual war, where drone strikes simply foster more anger and resentment towards America, and in turn more potential terrorist threats. The answer? “We can kill them faster than they can make them,” one character off-handedly says.

Niccol touched on an unusual story of conflict in Lord Of War, and Good Kill could be seen as a low-key but equally unsettling companion to that film. But as mentioned above, it’s also of a piece with his science fiction films – the only difference is that what he depicts here doesn’t take place in the far-flung future, but in the recent past.

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Good Kill is highly effective as a drama, with a detailed and thoughtful performance from Hawke as a faded pilot-turned office chair executioner. It’s also a gripping look at a relatively new technology, and how it’s quietly changing the face of war.

Good Kill is out now in UK cinemas.

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Ryan Lambie

Good Kill (United States, 2015)

When the usage of drones (officially "unmanned combat aerial vehicles") for bombing and surveillance entered the national conversation during the latter years of the last century, the general reaction was positive. The argument was that, by using these aircraft, the lives of American pilots might be saved and more complete intelligence could be compiled about potential targets. Nearly a quarter century later, the debate has grown more complicated and heated. Andrew Niccol's Good Kill explores the moral landscape surrounding drone use, focusing not on the targets but on those who control the weaponry. One question in particular emerges from the none-to-subtle monologues: Is it more ethical to bomb while sitting in a secure location 7000 miles away than to attack from the cockpit of an aircraft flying overhead?

Egan, a decorated fighter pilot with six tours of duty behind him, has been reassigned to controlling drones over the Middle East and North Africa from a location outside Las Vegas. It's a job that, despite his qualifications, he is ill-suited for.  His wife, Molly (January Jones), loves having him home but Egan misses the experience of being in a plane and views his current method of attacking as cowardly. He drinks to forget and is prone to volcanic bouts of temper. When a disembodied CIA voice known only as "Langley" (and provided by Peter Coyote) begins calling the shots - caring little about collateral damage as long as the mission is successful - Egan reaches his breaking point.

Good Kill excels as a character study with Niccol's screenplay making Egan a fascinatingly conflicted and flawed individual and Ethan Hawke giving one of his best recent performances bringing the man to life. The moral quandary facing Egan is only one facet of the issues besetting him. A deeper problem is that he feels trapped. Instead of flying free with the proverbial wind in his hair, he's forced to sit all day in a claustrophobic room then come home to a wife who watches and worries. Toward the end, when Egan makes two decisive choices, it seems more like an act of rebellion than an ethical statement. To an extent, it's both, but to Niccol and Hawke's credit, the motivations aren't italicized in black and white. The issues addressed in Good Kill exist firmly in the gray and that's where the character resides for the majority of the film.

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Review: ‘Good Kill’ Stars Ethan Hawke Fighting Enemies Half a World Away

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By Stephen Holden

• May 14, 2015

Disregard the arguments for and against drone warfare advanced in “ Good Kill ,” and the movie still makes a persuasive case that our blind infatuation with all-powerful technology is stripping us of our humanity.

Written and directed by Andrew Niccol (“Gattaca”), “Good Kill” is a blunt, outspoken critique of remote-control warfare, which is transforming the ugly reality of battlefield carnage into a video game whose casualties are pixels on a screen. The killing is real, and yet it isn’t. The title is the congratulatory jargon following an explosion that wipes out a terrorist cell or a Taliban hide-out in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen.

As you watch the smoke billow from a drone strike, it offers the cheap thrill felt by a child operating an Xbox, which the movie’s resident expert, Lt. Col. Johns (Bruce Greenwood) explains was a model for drones. “The brass don’t want to admit it,” he tells underlings, “but half of you were recruited in malls precisely because you’re a bunch of gamers.”

The blocky exposition, although highly informative, lends “Good Kill” a heavy-handed didacticism that undercuts the still shocking vision of the direction of modern warfare. Increasingly, it is a video game played by grown-ups who describe their dirty work in techno-speak that obscures what they are actually doing. Although the story is set back in 2010, when the use of drones was dramatically expanded, “Good Kill” still feels like science fiction.

The film’s conscience, Maj. Tom Egan ( Ethan Hawke ), is an embittered Air Force pilot who after six tours of duty flying F-16s, is now a drone operator in a cramped trailer at a base outside Las Vegas. Acutely nostalgic for the flashy heroics of aviation, Tom pleads to return to the sky, but drones have superseded aerial combat.

Mr. Hawke’s anguished performance gives “Good Kill” a hot emotional center. Tom is painfully aware that innocents will die from missiles dispatched from a great distance. In battle, of course, there is always the likelihood of collateral damage, but there’s a difference between pulling a joystick while thousands of miles from a theater of war and risking your life in an aircraft. Tom observes in horror when civilians wander into a targeted site and are blown up.

Tom blunts his guilt and boredom with booze swigged straight from the bottle. And his marriage to Molly (January Jones), a former dancer with whom he has two children, is in the deep freeze.

Scenes of Tom and his fellow officers out on the town suggest that the drinking and lap-dancing pleasures in Las Vegas — what Colonel Johns calls I&I (for “intoxication and intercourse”) — are as mechanical as drone strikes. Viewed from above, the treeless suburban housing development in which Tom and other officers live is an ugly, sterile wasteland baking in the heat that resembles the arid Afghan villages that the drone strikes reduce to dust.

The movie makes you feel the confinement of the trailer in which Tom works, wearing headphones and sitting in front of a computer. He belongs to a group of technicians awaiting orders, including the most sympathetic fellow officer, Vera (Zoë Kravitz), the only woman in the unit. She and Tom conduct a discreet flirtation.

Early in the story, the operation is taken over by the C.I.A. (facetiously nicknamed Christians in Action), whose rules of engagement are much looser than those of the military. Even the hard-nosed Colonel Johns is abashed by the wider license to kill.

It’s no longer necessary to identify a specific target as the enemy to be eliminated. All that’s required is for a “pattern of behavior” to be discerned. And Tom finds himself bombing a funeral for the victims of a strike. When rescue workers flock to the site of another explosion, he is instructed to kill them.

“Good Kill” at least makes a halfhearted attempt to justify drone warfare and its collateral damage. Most of those arguments are put in the mouth of Zimmer (Jake Abel), a gung-ho technician who reminds Tom that most of the casualties of the 9/11 terrorist attacks were American civilians. Zimmer’s motto: “Fly and fry.”

As Tom’s drinking worsens, and his inner turmoil reaches a boil, Mr. Hawke recalls Harrison Ford in his haunted, paranoid mode. At any second, you expect him to vomit up his bilious rage, but he resists.

“Good Kill” is really a contemporary horror movie about humans seduced and hypnotized by machines into surrendering their souls: “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” for techies.

Rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Violence, including a rape; sexuality; and some strong language.

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‘Good Kill’ review: A look at the mental and emotional costs of drone warfare

Ethan Hawke delivers a haggard, grimly convincing portrayal of a modern soldier-cum-video-game player in " Good Kill ," Andrew Niccol's timely meditation on the mental and emotional costs of remote-control warfare.

Once a pilot, now trapped behind a joystick for hours on end in the dusty deserts of Nevada, Hawke’s Maj. Thomas Egan executes drone strikes against the Taliban — or, increasingly, people who look and act like they might be Taliban — in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tom, who once flew F-16s, longs to be back in the air, his sense of dislocation making life difficult with his wife, Molly (January Jones), a former dancer. Meanwhile, when his orders start coming from the disembodied voice of a CIA leader (who else but Peter Coyote), the already slippery ethical slope of his mission becomes downright vertiginous.

How Hollywood influences the way we view the military

"Good Kill" was written and directed by Niccol, who has addressed issues of how technological change affects human values in such speculative films as " Gattaca " and " The Truman Show ," which he wrote. With "Good Kill," he embraces realism more fully, grounding his characters — literally and figuratively — in the monotony, dislocation and "Top Gun"-inspired jargon of their weirdly isolated camaraderie. Bruce Greenwood and Zoë Kravitz round out an excellent cast that reveals an aspect of contemporary warfare that the public is often happy to ignore: That while drone strikes may possess the advantages of less collateral damage and material destruction, they involve judgment calls and subjective opinions that skate a thin line between the rules of engagement and cold-blooded assassination.

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Admittedly, Niccol succumbs to the temptation to make mini-billboards out of his dialogue, in which arguments follow neat “on the one hand” trajectories. But for the most part, “Good Kill” asks pertinent, enduring questions, not by way of polemic, but through the study of a character whose professionalism and competence are given full respect, even when they’re challenged by the mission at hand. As the saying goes, never have so few served for so many for so long. Dramas like “Good Kill” at least help a civilian audience to imagine what sacrifice and service look like in the crosshairs of 21st-century combat.

R.  At ArcLight Bethesda. Contains violent content, including a rape, profanity and some sexuality. 103 minutes.

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

How’d you like to lie back — out of harm’s way, AC blasting — grab a remote and button-push a drone to bomb the shit out of your country’s enemy? Not a game. For real. Screw any collateral damage. That’s the loaded premise behind Good Kill, a potent provocation that keeps gnawing at you. Ethan Hawke digs deep and gives one of his best performances as Tom Egan, a former fighter pilot in Iraq, now assigned to a base near Las Vegas and ordered by his CO (a barking Bruce Greenwood) to bring down destruction on the Taliban. Forget personal consequences. Except, maybe, to his moral conscience.

Writer-director Andrew Niccol, who worked impressively with Hawke on the topic of genetic modification in 1997’s Gattaca, puts a lot out there. There’s Tom’s tortured relationship with his wife (an excellent January Jones) and kids. There’s his feelings about Obama’s drone policy. Tom doesn’t talk much; his co-pilot (Zoë Kravitz) does. And there’s the whole thorny issue of modern warfare and covert surveillance. Will gamers be the pilots of tomorrow? Will death lose its sting? Niccol conjectures all over the place. He’s doing too much, pushing too hard. Condemn the guy or clone him? You be the judge.

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‘Good Kill’: Ethan Hawke is on target as a conflicted drone pilot

A movie review of “Good Kill”: Ethan Hawke plays an Air Force drone pilot who slowly descends into existential despair as he fights a war that technology has made both distant and intimate. Rating: 3.5 stars out of 4.

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“Don’t ask me if this is a just war,” the commanding officer of Air Force drone pilot Tom Egan says in “Good Kill.” “It’s just war.”

But it’s not. It’s unlike any war fought in the millennias-long history of warfare.

Never before have warriors been able to closely watch their enemies for long periods from thousands of miles away, watch them unobserved from high-flying unmanned missile-carrying aircraft. And then, on command, kill them with the push of a button on a joystick.

Movie Review ★★★½  

‘Good Kill,’ with Ethan Hawke, January Jones, Bruce Greenwood, Zoë Kravitz. Written and directed by Andrew Niccol. 103 minutes. Rated R for violent content including a rape, language, and some sexuality. Varsity.

Writer-director Andrew Niccol (“Gattaca”) takes a thoughtful and immensely gripping look at this new form of warfare in “Good Kill.” Egan (Ethan Hawke), a former F-16 pilot with six combat tours under his belt, now spends his days in a windowless air-conditioned trailer on a base in the Nevada desert looking at video monitors showing images from Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen or, in the words of his commander (Bruce Greenwood, authoritative and plain-spoken), “whatever Godforsaken place we’re at war with that day.”

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The war he wages is filled with paradoxes. It’s distant yet intimate. From 7,000 miles away, Egan can see the expressions on the faces of the people in the streets and roads below. It’s office shift work with deadly outcomes. The front line, from the suburb where he lives, is just a freeway drive away. “I blew away six Taliban in Pakistan earlier today, now I’m going home to barbecue,” Egan tells a clerk in a Vegas liquor store.

Those paradoxes eat at Egan. Hawke, eyes narrowed and flinty, voice low and increasingly full of despair, is quietly devastating as a warrior who comes to deeply question just what it is he’s doing. When the CIA, represented by a disembodied voice on speaker phone (Peter Coyote, chillingly implacable), takes over target selection from the military and starts ordering so-called “signature strikes” — which don’t attack specific individuals but rather groups of people that anonymous analysts deem to be acting in a suspicious manner — Egan descends into an existential crisis. This isn’t what he signed up for.

Niccol’s script is trenchant and insightful, and his visuals, paralleling the dusty rough terrain of Afghanistan with the dessicated Nevada landscape in the midst of which Egan’s suburb is located, are powerful visual signifiers of the psychological wasteland in which the character finds himself.

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Following the release of ‘American Sniper’ earlier this year, a joke from controversial stand-up Frankie Boyle started doing the rounds on Twitter. ‘Not only will America go to your country and kill your people,’ it went, ‘but they’ll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.’ It’s a sentiment that’s impossible to shake while watching ‘Good Kill’, a sombre, intelligent drama that critiques Obama’s ongoing drone policy while still positioning its button-pushing characters as tortured anti-heroes. Ethan Hawke is on terse form as Tommy Egan, a former pilot now confined to a shipping crate outside of Las Vegas, taking computerised potshots at Taliban targets half a world away. His marriage is crumbling, his kids barely recognise him and he’s starting to question the morality of his mission – especially when orders come down from the CIA to step up the attacks. ‘Good Kill’ is a dour, claustrophobic film, offering an acute and stunningly photographed exploration of middle-American banality and moral ambivalence. Tommy’s house is a featureless box backing on to an empty desert. His life is devoid of joy or meaning. But how much are we supposed to care? Yes, Tommy’s orders are repellent – but does following them make him complicit, or just a good soldier? That’s the question writer-director Andrew Niccol never comes to terms with, preferring a hands-off approach that feels less like calculated emotional distancing and more like a cowardly refusal to engage

Release Details

• Release date: Friday 10 April 2015
• Duration: 104 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: Andrew Niccol
• Screenwriter: Andrew Niccol
• Ethan Hawke
• January Jones
• Zoë Kravitz

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Common Sense Media Review

Disturbing scenes in heavy but effective war-related drama.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Good Kill is a war-related drama about a U.S. Air Force pilot (Ethan Hawke) who now fires drones at Middle Eastern targets from a safe bunker in Las Vegas. There are scenes of shocking, upsetting violence when victims are shown dying in explosions (seen via video monitors). And a man…

Why Age 17+?

Heavy, constant language. Multiple uses of "f--k" and "f--king.&q

A man hits a woman and rapes her, twice, as seen from satellite cameras. Explosi

A husband and wife have sex; she's on top, but there isn't any graphic n

The main character seems on the verge of being an alcoholic; he sneaks drinks fr

Mention of Ferrari and Ford.

Any Positive Content?

Raises interesting questions about the nature of war, giving older teens and gro

The characters aren't particularly admirable, though they do suffer from a c

Heavy, constant language. Multiple uses of "f--k" and "f--king." Plus "s--t," "bitch," "piss," "crap," "Jesus Christ" (as an exclamation), "Godforsaken."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

A man hits a woman and rapes her, twice, as seen from satellite cameras. Explosions, death, and destruction as shown on a video monitor. A man has explosions of temper. He briefly hits his wife, then punches a mirror.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A husband and wife have sex; she's on top, but there isn't any graphic nudity. Heavy sexual innuendo. Reference to oral sex. Flirting between a married man and another woman.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The main character seems on the verge of being an alcoholic; he sneaks drinks from a bottle of vodka in the bathroom and drinks in the car -- he's pulled over for drunk driving. Also beer drinking at parties and cigarette smoking. Reference to "coke" (cocaine). "War on drugs" is mentioned.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Positive messages.

Raises interesting questions about the nature of war, giving older teens and grown-ups something to really think about and talk about.

Positive Role Models

The characters aren't particularly admirable, though they do suffer from a crisis of conscience. They're all very troubled and conflicted, and each tries to find some way of dealing with the stresses of the job, whether it's drinking, blindly following orders, or eventually quitting.

Parents need to know that Good Kill is a war-related drama about a U.S. Air Force pilot ( Ethan Hawke ) who now fires drones at Middle Eastern targets from a safe bunker in Las Vegas. There are scenes of shocking, upsetting violence when victims are shown dying in explosions (seen via video monitors). And a man rapes a woman, twice, while airmen watch helplessly from their monitors. The main character has moments of explosive rage/violence himself and briefly strikes out at his wife. A married couple has sex; there's also some flirting and heavy sexual innuendo. Language is nearly constant, with "f--k" and "f---ing" both used a ton. The character also drinks very heavily -- and sometimes secretly, making it seem like he's on the verge of addiction. Characters also smoke, and there's a reference to cocaine. Though the movie isn't very subtle, it offers many thought-provoking themes for older teens and adults to ponder and discuss. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In 2010, U.S. Air Force pilot Major Thomas Egan ( Ethan Hawke ) controls unmanned aerial vehicles (also called "drones") from a safe bunker in Las Vegas. On a daily basis, he must deal with the moral ramifications of killing people using a monitor -- and the damage to his ego that comes from performing a job with no risk. A new member of his team ( Zoe Kravitz ) becomes increasingly disillusioned with their duties, while others believe they're serving their country. Thomas also helplessly drifts away from his children and his wife, Molly ( January Jones ), retreating into drinking and daydreaming. When the chance to help someone comes along, even at the risk of everything else, he must decide whether to take it.

Is It Any Good?

Though the movie is heavy and preachy, with characters making too many speeches, Hawke's powerful performance humanizes the incendiary material and gives it an emotional heft. Writer/director Andrew Niccol specializes in movies about people trapped in mechanized worlds, though he usually achieves a bit more success with some irony infused in the storytelling.

In GOOD KILL, which is based on actual events, the irony is all spoken out loud: At least two characters -- seasoned Colonel Jack Johns ( Bruce Greenwood ) and new recruit Vera Suarez (Kravitz) -- seem to be in the film almost solely for that purpose. Thankfully, Hawke digs into a very dark place for his role (his anguish draws real empathy from viewers), and Jones matches him as his suffering wife who continually tries to reach him but also has a life of her own. And Niccol makes expert, thoughtful use of the bunker interiors, crossed with the wide-open spaces of Las Vegas.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Good Kill 's violence . How does the fact that it takes place mostly on video monitors affect its impact? Does that make it seem less or more horrible? Does exposure to violent movies make kids more aggressive?

Why do you think the character drinks so much? Does he enjoy it? What are the signs that he's becoming addicted? Are there consequences for his drinking?

What does the movie have to say about the use of drones in war? Is it for or against them? What complicates the issue?

How are good and evil designated in this movie? Are there clear "good guys" and "bad guys"? Is there a gray area?

Movie Details

• In theaters : May 15, 2015
• On DVD or streaming : September 1, 2015
• Cast : Ethan Hawke , Bruce Greenwood , January Jones
• Director : Andrew Niccol
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : IFC Films
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 102 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : violent content including a rape, language, and some sexuality
• Last updated : June 19, 2023

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The Messenger

American Sniper

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• Apr 28, 2015

This movie highlights important issues.

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Ten Seconds

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Not entertainment but education

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How stupid are wars and how can we justify collateral damage?

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a solid film, an important subject

Another one of my jobs is damage assessment......

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I liked it a lot, but it's really grim when feeding you a lot to think about

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Interesting but it just scratches the surface...

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Yet another Clueless Hollywood version of War; over simplified propaganda

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A deep film that is more of a thinking movie than an entertaining one

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"The valor of man is at end"

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'Good Burger 2' Review: Kenan & Kel’s Reunion Is More a Delicious Celebration Than a Sequel

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The Big Picture

• Good Burger 2 brings back the beloved characters of Dexter and Ed in a heartwarming reunion that celebrates the SNICK era and nostalgic humor.
• The sequel is punchier and funnier than the original film, with better turns-of-phrase from Ed and stronger references that add to its playful vibe.
• While the story may not be masterful and the third act drags slightly, Good Burger 2 delivers on the nostalgia factor for 90s kids who want to see their childhood favorites having fun together again.

Considering that 1997’s Good Burger was a film based on a one-note sketch from a show that was essentially Saturday Night Live for kids, starring a character whose primary character trait is being confused, it’s shocking how enjoyable Good Burger is, and the longevity this almost thirty-year-old film has had. Born from Nickelodeon’s All That series, Good Burger starred Kel Mitchell as the always befuddled Ed and his friend/coworker Dexter, played by Kenan Thompson . In the years since Good Burger , these two have gone their separate ways, with Kenan becoming the longest-running cast member on SNL , and Kel remaining a mainstay of Nickelodeon programming.

Good Burger 2

The highly anticipated film sequel follows Dexter Reed (Kenan Thompson) and original cashier Ed (Kel Mitchell) as they reunite in the present day at fast-food restaurant Good Burger with a hilarious new group of employees. In  GOOD BURGER 2 , Dexter Reed is down on his luck after another one of his inventions fails. Ed welcomes Dex back to Good Burger with open arms and gives him his old job back. With a new crew working at Good Burger, Dex devises a plan to get back on his feet but unfortunately puts the fate of Good Burger at risk once again. - Paramount+

But in the last three decades, Kenan & Kel have both frequently returned to their All That roots . The duo revived Good Burger for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon , and when All That was rebooted in 2019—with Kenan & Kel as executive producers—Ed and Good Burger once again became a major part of the series, as well as many returning favorites from the original show, like Lori Beth Denberg and Josh Server . Even last year, on the Keke Palmer episode of SNL , the duo recreated their Kenan & Kel series. While Mitchell and Thompson’s careers have grown, it’s always been clear that part of their heart still existed on that All That stage.

While, yes, it might sound wild to say that there is now a Good Burger 2 in 2023, it’s that passion and love for those childhood days as these characters that they keep returning to that makes this long-in-the-works sequel mostly delightful. For the audience who grew up with Kenan & Kel, Good Burger 2 is like a celebration of the SNICK era and the childish, silly, but ultimately charming humor of the time. And for Kenan & Kel, Good Burger 2 is the grand reunion it seems they’ve been pining for ever since they went their own ways.

What Is 'Good Burger 2' About?

In the years since the events of the original Good Burger , Dexter has gone on to become an attempted entrepreneur, with Dextreme Industries. When his newest idea, Burn No More, leaves his house in flames, leading to his investors being angry at him and Mark Cuban demanding that he’s owed money, Dexter returns home and back to Good Burger. Dexter also finds that his niece Mia ( Kamaia Fairburn ), who also works at the Good Burger, is mad at her uncle for spending all of her mom’s money as well. Meanwhile, Ed has remained behind the counter at Good Burger since he was 15, but now, Ed has a wife Edie ( Ego Nwodim ), and a whole clan of children—mostly named after condiments.

With Ed and Dexter back at the Good Burger, Dexter wants to find a way to become a successful entrepreneur. He might have found his opportunity through Cecil McNevin ( Lil Rel Howery ) who wants to buy Good Burger for the ominous-sounding MegaCorp and franchise it. While Ed just wants things to stay the same, Dexter seems an opportunity that could be good for the both of them, but could ultimately mean the end of Good Burger again.

'Good Burger 2' Works Because of the Friendship Between Kenan & Kel

In the first Good Burger , Dexter found himself confounded by Ed’s way of thinking, but in Good Burger 2 , we find that this pair has remained best friends over the years. Immediately, this makes Good Burger 2 feel like an endearing reunion for these characters and for Kenan & Kel. Every scene of Good Burger 2 seems like these two are going to ruin the cut because they’re so close to smiling at what they’re doing all these years later. With Denberg and Server also making appearances, Good Burger 2 does often feel like a homecoming for this group that grew up together, and honestly, that joy is enough to make this sequel work.

Written by Good Burger writers Keith Kopelow and Heath Seifert , Good Burger 2 is also just punchier and funnier than the original film. The turns-of-phrase from Ed are better, the strange references (one segment sees Ed and Dexter crashing a concert, performed by Nicole Byer , which includes a Reservoir Dogs joke) are stronger, and the vibe is more playful than even the first film. Again, by making Ed and Dexter lifelong friends who stick by each other, there’s also a heartwarming side to this that the original also didn’t have. At least in terms of the humor, Good Burger 2 does tighten up and strengthen what is basically a sketch stretched into 90 minutes.

'Good Burger 2' Is the Fast Food of Movies—But That's Fine!

Granted, Good Burger 2 isn’t going to have a masterful story (although a major part of the story does revolve around the automatization of fast food workers via machines—a weird, unexpected layer to this film), and not surprisingly, this does feel a bit stretched near the end. The third act, especially, drags, as we go through the motions towards the ending, even though it does have a bit of fun with referencing the villains of the first film. Director Phil Traill also can’t help but make Good Burger 2 often seem like a collection of cameos , and while it never quite takes away from Kenan & Kel, it does sometimes feel like there’s not enough space for all the guests who want to show up.

But let’s be honest: if you’re watching Good Burger 2 , you’re probably not interested in a deeper story or something that screams brilliant comedy. Rather, you’re a 90s kid who wants to see two childhood favorites having fun together again. And in that regard, Good Burger 2 does deliver. Akin to how Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back celebrated that duo through goofy antics and an obscene amount of cameos, Good Burger 2 takes that same approach for those who grew up wishing to be on All That . Good Burger 2 certainly isn’t a masterpiece, but Kenan & Kel still have the special sauce that makes this film work.

Good Burger 2 is now available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.

Watch on Paramount+

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“May you never die until I kill you.” These are the eight chilling words, scrawled on a piece of paper by serial killer John Sweeney, that give ITV ’s new true crime drama its name. Until I Kill You is the story of Delia Balmer , the sole known survivor of Sweeney, who is now serving life for his crimes. Actually, as is very clear from the harrowing events we witness, Balmer is also a victim of the British criminal justice system, which spent years gaslighting and further traumatising her in various courts and police interview rooms.

She has, in short, suffered for most of her life. Delia’s experiences may have been extreme – to the extent that she almost died on a number of occasions, and has been left with pain and disfigurement from the injuries Sweeney inflicted on her – but we all know only too well, from any number of other real-world cases, that the failures of the system to defend and protect women only vary in degree. In at least two other cases (those of Melissa Halstead and Paula Fields, which are alluded to in the drama), Sweeney did murder them, dismember their bodies and dump their remains in canals in Holland and London.

This is a harrowing drama. It’s also a compelling one, because of the constant jeopardy that Delia finds herself in. Played opposite Shaun Evans’s Sweeney with a kind of wary sympathy by Anna Maxwell Martin , Delia is not an especially likeable person. Indeed, she’s often rude and oddly obsessional about her few belongings; hers is a life lived with an extreme minimalism. Maxwell Martin treats her as, one imagines, Delia would wish to be – as a unique person, and an unusual one, refreshingly nuanced, in that sense, and Martin vividly captures the shades in her personality – far from the kind of one-dimensional “Female Victim #1” that appears in too many such documentaries and dramatisations.

Delia is irritable, reacting with startling scorn to well-meaning strangers when they ask if her accent is American, and she then lectures them on her family history – more Australian and Canadian than American, as if they should have discerned that from an initial greeting. She is awkward with most of her workmates, and declares at one point that she’s never loved anyone because she doesn’t believe in “that mushy stuff”. A kind of ageing hippy, then, in the early 1990s, aged about 40, who loves to travel and to dance and who meets a charming Scouse carpenter in a London pub. She meets Sweeney’s family, and he moves in, in every sense. We watch with a mounting sense of doom as he slowly develops his coercive control over her, like a cancer, culminating in tying her to the bed and periodically raping her.

Her friends try to help, but the police don’t take it that seriously at first, and even when they do, a judge lets Sweeney out on bail. He absconds, and for years Delia lives in fear of him, until one day he turns up and attacks her with an axe and a knife, leaving her with life-changing injuries. In her various testimonies in court, we learn exactly what kind of a manipulative monster Sweeney is, with the added horror of his habitual sketching of the women who fell under his control, including of their dismemberment.

It is these explicit, annotated drawings that help convict him in the end, and the cold words on one of them give rise to the title of this superbly constructed piece. In that sense, Sweeney is a kind of stereotype serial killer – Dennis Nilsen (David Tennant in the superb Des ) did the same – but obviously still unfathomable. At moments, Evans renders Sweeney as simply insane, a torturer himself tortured by not understanding why he does what he does; but as we also see, Sweeney is always purposeful and determined in his murderous work, and his moments of repentance and tenderness just fake. The discovery by the police of a sort of “murder kit” secreted in Delia’s flat – ropes, bleach, gloves and a hacksaw – proves his intent beyond doubt.

In Until I Kill You, even Sweeney’s eventual final trial at the Old Bailey for his other crimes is filmed with a dark, claustrophobic feel that matches the sense that Delia is still emotionally imprisoned by Sweeney, decades after she first encountered him. And, in the brilliant performance by Maxwell Martin, Delia remains defiant but unhealed by a kind of survivor’s anger, rather than guilt. When she cries out, “Everyone cares about the dead ones – maybe I should have died and the police would give a f*** about it,” it’s hard not to feel like she might be right.

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Lioness Season 2, Episode 3 Review: A High-Volume Filler Episode Keeps the Plot Moving

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The following contains major spoilers for Lioness Season 2, Episode 3, "Along Came a Spider," now streaming on Paramount+ . It also contains discussion of sexual content.

The action-packed Lioness Season 2 premiere is followed by a slow-paced episode that moves all the plot components into place. Season 2, Episode 3, "Along Came a Spider" executes much of what was talked about in the opening two episodes. That doesn't mean that it's exciting to watch, however, as unnecessary subplots and camera shots that linger too long make it feel like a filler installment to line up all the dots.

"Along Came a Spider" formally puts Captain Josie Carrillo into the Lioness program, and most of the hour follows her as she arrives at the team's headquarters and goes through training. There's also a plotline about the CIA drumming up political support for Josie's operation. But there's no jaw-dropping moment in the story, and nothing that audiences necessarily need to know for future episodes. It simply moves the season along to where it needs to go.

Lioness Season 2, Episode 3 Hits Its Marks

Josie's training experience is a familiar storyline.

The majority of Lioness Season 2, Episode 3 is devoted to Josie Carillo meeting the rest of the Lioness team and beginning her training as their next operative. This is the kind of material that would be condensed on other shows, or even potentially skipped over -- and based on what happens in Taylor Sheridan's script, it wouldn't have been implausible to move ahead to the start of Josie's mission. Sheridan, however, wants to show the audience how uncomfortable and out of place Josie is, and how little Joe trusts her. The result is pretty much what audiences expect from the genre: scenes of Josie having awkward non-conversations with her new colleagues, of her not knowing where things are or what to do, of her getting used to the harsh reality she signed up for.

It's very hard to write a great filler episode , because there's a trick to establishing necessary plot points while not letting the audience feel like that's what is happening. Lioness wants to show Josie's development as an intelligence operative, which means devoting an episode to all of those basic first steps. The problem is that it doesn't find a way to make any of those things interesting. There's a brief scene in which Josie is asked if she has any questions about running the training course, which could've been an opening to illustrate some back and forth between how she works and how the program wants her to work. It could also have established Josie's own instincts and point of view, to help set her apart from Cruz in Season 1. But she asks one question and moves on.

Joe (of Josie): [She's] an adrenaline junkie with a chip on her shoulder.

The biggest wrench thrown into this plotline is that Joe and Kyle Sanford get Josie to admit she's been holding information back, including that she speaks Spanish and is aware of her family's criminal activities. But that fourth-act reveal doesn't make up for going through the motions in the rest of the episode. And in fact, the shouting in Josie's face has already gotten tiresome. This is the second episode in a row that has ended with Joe aggressively confronting Josie, and Josie being in tears. That didn't really work as an emotional cliffhanger at the end of Episode 2 and it doesn't work here. It would have been compelling if Josie had gotten emotional purely as a a reaction to calling her estranged father, as a sign of her own inner conflict; instead, the audience knows she's just crying because she's gotten strong-armed again. And that's been the issue with Lioness Season 2 so far: it doesn't seem to know how to do much more than military toughness.

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Season 2, Episode 3 Has Some Unneeded Subplots

Kaitlyn and joe's personal lives take different turns.

Lioness tries to integrate both Joe and Kaitlyn Meade's personal lives into Episode 3, but feels mostly like it's just killing time. Kaitlyn's interactions with her husband Errol at least serve the larger plot, as Kaitlyn and Byron Westfield set out to schmooze people into supporting their operation. Kaitlyn brings Errol to dinner so that he can serve up some talking points in her favor before she casually finds Byron in his own conversation at the same restaurant. Within moments, they're informed that they have access to a "black fund" from Joint Special Operations Command. It's the kind of political gamesmanship that happens in so many spy series -- and The Others star Kidman makes it look effortless. It's also nice to see more screen time for Martin Donovan, even though he's still largely underused as Errol Meade.

Joe's subplot, though, has no relevance and comes across as Sheridan trying to remind the audience that she still has to deal with parenting problems, too. Joe and Neal's daughter Kate walks in on them having sex, which Joe takes an awkward approach to discussing with her, by saying how "lucky" Kate is that her parents still love each other. Her intentions are good but the scene falls completely flat, and it's impossible not to ask what this has to do with anything. And the scenes of Joe at home are stretched out like Lioness is trying to soak up an extra few seconds here or there. For example, when Joe first arrives home, the sequence of her walking in the door, putting things down and looking for Neal takes just a bit longer than it actually needs to. While one can respect Sheridan's commitment to keeping Joe's family life as part of the show, it's okay to let that slide for an episode if there's really no purpose for it.

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Lioness Season 2, Episode 3 Lacks Its Own Momentum

But the real story is primed to start.

There's nothing in "Along Came a Spider" that makes it worth watching again on its own. At least the first two episodes of Season 2 had great action sequences to make up for the slow-burning plot; this episode substitutes arguing and other pointed dialogue for action. It's worth going back to Joe and Josie's confrontation, because so far that's the entirety of their dynamic. It's repeated in this episode that Joe doesn't trust Josie and fans can't necessarily fault Josie for being cautious either, since she hasn't exactly gotten a warm welcome. But if the audience is going to root for these characters to succeed, Lioness has to offer more than "because they're the good guys."

Kaitlyn Meade: How many times do I have to tell you this? You can't trust any of them.

Sheridan is great at playing in grey areas; it's a staple of every single one of his shows. Characters can be loved one episode and hated in the next, and a lot of times fans feel somewhere in between. A good example of that was Iris in Mayor of Kingstown ; she made some choices that the audience didn't agree with, but she also had a lot of individual depth and value to the overall plot. Lioness Season 2, Episode 3 lines up all the plot dominoes so that it can get into the meat of the CIA action -- the money is in Kaitlyn and Byron's hands, the politicians are convinced, the operative is (somewhat) trained. But what this season doesn't have yet is enough character development to make viewers care. Under all the bravado and all the high stakes, there has to be a beating heart. Perhaps once the ball gets rolling and characters have to react instead of plot and plan, audiences will see more of that.

Lioness streams Sundays on Paramount+ .

Lioness Season 2, Episode 3

Kaitlyn works to drum up support for their plan. Meanwhile, Lioness training begins for Captain Josie Carrillo.

• The episode moves both its political and CIA plots in the right direction.
• Martin Donovan gets a little more screen time as Errol Meade.
• Nothing truly exciting happens in the episode.
• Joe and Josie's dynamic has already gotten old.

• Paramount Plus