VENICE, Italy (AP) – It’s such a banal word: drones.
Don’t be fooled. Unmanned aerial vehicles have changed the way wars are fought, turning some forms of combat into a computer game with flesh-and-blood victims.
The ethical cost to a nation and the emotional toll on individuals of America’s new weaponry are explored in “Good Kill,” a sobering 21st-century riposte to “Top Gun” that stars Ethan Hawke as a former combat pilot reassigned to fly missions in Afghanistan from the safety of a trailer in the Nevada desert.
“I’m always interested in how humanity and technology intersect,” said the film’s writer-director, Andrew Niccol.
The New Zealand-born filmmaker depicted one sort of high-tech dystopia in 1997 sci-fi movie “Gattaca.” In “Good Kill,” he explores the implications of waging war while staying home, a development that – for the drone operators – has blurred the border between front line and home.