Steven Spielberg has long been a proponent of making movies with the overarching theme of man battling something. He’s done man vs. animal (“Jaws” and “Jurassic Park”), man vs. the supernatural (“War of the Worlds” and “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial”) and man vs. man (“Catch Me If You Can”).
One of his favorite themes, however, is man vs. technology, which he’s explored on more than a few occasions. “Eagle Eye” is a film that falls directly into that category, and as badly as Spielberg might have wanted, he just had no room in his schedule to make it himself. Instead, he rides this one out as executive producer and passes the duties of actual filmmaking down to relative newcomer D. J. Caruso. The problem with that plan is that Caruso is in way over his head, and the film suffers greatly because of it.
Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) is a slacker working at Copy Cabana who has trouble paying rent for his seedy apartment. After his twin brother is killed working for the military, Jerry finds that somehow his bank account now has $750,000 in it and his apartment is full of high-grade military weapons, bomb-making equipment and aircraft blueprints. He receives a mysterious call from a woman warning him that the FBI is on its way, but he pays no attention and gets arrested as a possible terrorist. While in custody, the strange woman intercepts his one phone call and helps him escape in an outlandish way that sets the tone for the action throughout the rest of the movie.
The woman on the phone has also begun calling Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), and forces the two of them to team up to execute some type of unknown master plan. The woman calls the two on random cell phones, adjusts traffic lights for them, and basically bends the rules of technology to help them escape the police, the Air Force and the Department of Homeland Security on several different occasions.
Caruso8212;who directed last year’s sleeper hit “Disturbia”8212;starts out fine.
He’s a capable director when he’s working on scenes merely involving actors, but the action is where he has problems.
One of the reasons Spielberg is so good at these types of films is because he’s had the practice and taken the time to learn how to shoot big-budget action sequences. Caruso seems confused whenever something like that comes up, and ends up losing the audience instead of captivating it. The scenes are a mishmash of random shot after shot with quick cuts to make it feel as if it’s moving at a fast pace, but it’s nearly impossible to tell what’s going on.
The cast is the film’s strong suit and is the reason things stay on the up-and-up for the majority of the time. LaBeouf has played the sensitive rebel so many times that he’s gotten it down pat, but the shtick is wearing thin. Monaghan has no trouble with her “damsel in distress” character, Rosario Dawson as an Air Force agent and Michael Chiklis (still the Commish, “The Shield” be damned) as the Secretary of Defense do fine jobs as well, but it’s Billy Bob Thornton’s hard-talking Homeland Security officer that steals every scene he’s in, and fortunately he’s in a lot of them.
“Eagle Eye” is an entertaining popcorn flick for about two-thirds of the running time, but the plot veers off in the direction of the ridiculous toward the end. The cast is the glue that holds the whole thing together, but Caruso could use a little bit more practice when it comes to big-time action spectacles. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready for Camp Spielberg after all.
