Feb 23, 2024 08:53 PM
(This post was last modified: Feb 23, 2024 09:12 PM by Yazata.)
This movie hit the theaters last week with almost zero publicity, but I've been hearing good word of mouth about it.
It's a military drama that follows a group of US Delta Force special operators tasked with rescuing a CIA operative held hostage by Muslim terrorists in the southern Philippines. They are accompanied by an Air Force JTAC (joint tactical air controller) played by Liam Hemsworth who is new to combat but proves to be just as brave as the experienced Special Ops guys. It's his job to communicate with the drone pilots halfway around the world at Creech Air Force Base in the Nellis ranges north of Las Vegas.
This is how it's done in real life and today all the US drones and drone-strikes taking place in Syria, Yemen and Iraq are actually flown by pilots sitting safely in chairs in Nevada. The movie drone pilot is an cynical aging guy played by Russell Crowe, one of the heroes of the movie even though most of his action sequences are played sitting in a chair faced by video screens. Crowe's character doesn't like authority and he doesn't like abandoning guys in the field. And a big part of the movie is about contrasting combat in the jungle with video-game combat where killing people is just a matter of pushing a button.
Meanwhile the whole operation goes south as our protagonist tries to escape from a jungle filled with terrorists who would love nothing more than to torture him to death. All while Crowe's drones circle overhead trying to be his eye in the sky and occasionally firing the odd Hellfire missile. Lots of realism in this movie, the good guys suffer and bleed (at least the ones actually in the jungle) and when they fire their weapons they don't always hit what they are shooting at.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFiXYToyIxU
It's a military drama that follows a group of US Delta Force special operators tasked with rescuing a CIA operative held hostage by Muslim terrorists in the southern Philippines. They are accompanied by an Air Force JTAC (joint tactical air controller) played by Liam Hemsworth who is new to combat but proves to be just as brave as the experienced Special Ops guys. It's his job to communicate with the drone pilots halfway around the world at Creech Air Force Base in the Nellis ranges north of Las Vegas.
This is how it's done in real life and today all the US drones and drone-strikes taking place in Syria, Yemen and Iraq are actually flown by pilots sitting safely in chairs in Nevada. The movie drone pilot is an cynical aging guy played by Russell Crowe, one of the heroes of the movie even though most of his action sequences are played sitting in a chair faced by video screens. Crowe's character doesn't like authority and he doesn't like abandoning guys in the field. And a big part of the movie is about contrasting combat in the jungle with video-game combat where killing people is just a matter of pushing a button.
Meanwhile the whole operation goes south as our protagonist tries to escape from a jungle filled with terrorists who would love nothing more than to torture him to death. All while Crowe's drones circle overhead trying to be his eye in the sky and occasionally firing the odd Hellfire missile. Lots of realism in this movie, the good guys suffer and bleed (at least the ones actually in the jungle) and when they fire their weapons they don't always hit what they are shooting at.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFiXYToyIxU