Where have you gone, Iceman, Goose and Maverick?
In Andrew Niccol's worthwhile but unconvincing drone-warfare drama, a former Top Gun type played by Ethan Hawke pines for his F-16 glory days, his jet shown artfully in slow-motion, as if representing a more poetic and honourable way of killing people in far-off lands than by unmanned aerial vehicles.
There's a lot of rationalizing in this topical, sombre film on the war on terror – a sort of American Sniper, but in which the sharp-shooting is done from inside air-conditioned containers on an airbase outside Las Vegas.
Story continues below advertisement
Hawke's moody Major Tom Egan kills by remote control, but he's pushed over the edge when the CIA takes over and orders morally dubious missions.
His commander – Bruce Greenwood, looking fine in that flight suit at the age of 58 – shakes his head a lot, but reasons that the killing must continue, because even if the good guys were to stop, the bad guys wouldn't.
Good Kill is half-measure, with a redemptive ending that plays as safe and bogus.