In the world of drone warfare, quickly becoming the “new normal,” 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 place, but he now fights the Taliban from an air-conditioned box in the Las Vegas desert. When he and his crew start taking orders directly from the CIA, and the stakes are raised, Egan’s nerves — and his relationship with his wife (January Jones) — begin to unravel. Revealing the psychological toll drone pilots endure as they are forced to witness the aftermath of their fight against insurgents, Andrew Niccol directs this riveting insider’s view of 21st-century warfare, in which operatives target enemies from half a world away. Good Kill also stars Zoe Kravitz, Bruce Greenwood, and Jack Abel. I spoke to Niccol about this provocative film and what it was like to work with Ethan Hawke for the third time (following Gattaca and Lord of War).
Danny Miller: I knew that our military was using drones but I had no idea that these drones were being operated from here — and in Las Vegas yet!
Andrew Niccol: There’s a good reason that it’s near Las Vegas — the mountains there look very much like the mountains in Afghanistan so it’s the perfect place to practice.
Oh, that makes sense.
Sometimes tourists driving from L.A. to Vegas will follow the drones.
I’ll have to look for them next time I drive up! Was it challenging researching this film when you knew you weren’t going to get much cooperation from the military or the CIA?
I didn’t expect it. It was a little challenging but fortunately I had several ex-drone pilots — because of the high level of burnout in that profession, there are a lot of ex-drone pilots around. I was able to use them to authenticate what I was doing.
Do you anticipate ever hearing from the U.S. military or the CIA about the film?
No, I think that they would prefer to avoid drawing attention to it. But I’ll probably be audited every year from now on! (Laughs.)
Were some of the more controversial drone strikes depicted in the film based on real-life incidents?
Absolutley. There are no strikes shown in the film that haven’t been documented. We have struck funerals, we have struck weddings, we have struck first responders, you can find all that out yourself if you look in the search engine of your choice.
Wow. You know, I’m not someone who is against video games, but it’s hard to imagine how a generation that is so used to them is not a little desensitized if they are now in the position of operating drones from so far a distance. There’s no way those people can have the same kind of visceral understanding of what is really happening in such warfare.
I agree with you. When I talked to younger drone pilots, they’d tell me that they would do a shift fighting the Taliban by remote control and then go back to their apartments on the Vegas strip and play their violent video games. It’s kind of jaw-dropping but I didn’t put any of that in the movie because it seems so preposterous. And because Ethan’s character comes from a prior generation.
It’s interesting to see the difference between the drone pilots who are used to actually being there in real planes and the younger ones who are getting used to this new “safer” way of fighting. But there seem to be some pretty potent ramifications for everyone involved.
Yes. I made this film to explore how you fight in a way when you never leave home. What does that do to somebody, what kind of toll does it take? There are going to be more and more Tommy Egans — it’s becoming the new normal that we fight wars remotely. Those wars are easier to sell to the public that is tired of seeing coffins coming down conveyor belts, and they’re also much cheaper but one of my worries is that it can make for an endless war. Afghanistan is by far the United States’ longest war — we’ve been there for 14 years! And even when the troops leave, I have no doubt that the drones will stay. As Bruce Greenwood’s character says in the film, can we really ever declare victory and go home? I think it’s a valid question and I don’t really have an answer to it.
This film takes place in 2010. Are drones being used even more now, five years later?
It was interesting because 2010 was the greatest escalation in drone strikes and then because there was a lot of publicity about it, it was sort of reined back. But now that ISIS has reared its ugly head, it’s increased again. We thought we were out of Iraq but we’re actually back in. They’re also working on remote tanks. And the drones you see in this movie have been replaced by much more sophisticated ones.
You’ve worked with Ethan Hawke on several films now. Is he the kind of actor who wants to spend a lot of time talking with you about what makes the character tick?
I honestly don’t think I could have made this movie without Ethan because we have such a shorthand now that it’s bordering on telepathy! He’ll do a take and I’ll want to adjust him in a certain way and I’ll take one step forward and he’ll go, “No, I know what you want me to do,” and he’ll do the exact adjustment I was just about to make. It’s spooky! I had such a compressed schedule on this that I really needed someone who was operating with that kind of telepathic power!
I thought January Jones was excellent in this film. I saw it right after the Man Men finale and I wanted to scream, “Dear God, will someone please give this woman an emotionally responsive husband!”
(Laughs.) The thing about Ethan is that normally he’s a very generous actor, he will really try to help his co-star but in this case, his character couldn’t do that! Because of the nature of the story, January was acting up against a brick wall and I thought she did a fantastic job.
Did you shoot all those aerial scenes with a kind of remote control camera drone? Is that the future of filmmaking as well?
In a way although in this case I mostly used a kind of helicopter platform. It was a strange challenge for me because I went to Morocco to shoot all of that footage. I’d be location scouting and they’d drive me into a town and say “What do you think?” and I’d say “I don’t know yet” because I realized I could only be above, never on the ground since the drone operators were never on the ground.
It’s weird to look back at some of your films such as Gattaca and The Truman Show, which you wrote, and realize how prescient you were! Genetic engineering is moving forward and we’re practically living in The Truman Show at this point. Are you working on any more sci-fi or fantasy films that will give us another glimpse at our future?
I am but I’m too superstitious to talk about it. I think my crystal ball is a bit cloudy these days, I’ll have to get to work on that!