Eagle Eye

EAGLE EYE. D. J. Caruso, dir. John Glenn, Travis Wright, Hillary Seitz, Dan McDermott, script, from a story by Dan McDermott. USA: DreamWorks (prod.) / Dreamworks, UIP, UPI, et al. (dist.; see IMDb for details), 2008. Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan, central players.

"Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) and Rachel Holloman (Monaghan) are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situation, using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move. As the situation escalates, these two ordinary people become the country's most wanted fugitives, who must work together to discover what is really happening -– and more importantly, why" (IMDb plot summary). SPOILER: The woman's voice is that of a US government computer of some beauty, visually related to HAL 9000 from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and the Eye of Sargon from Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003). See for threat of computer take-over, computer manipulation, gendered computers (female), and extreme surveillance. Note that the politics of the film are confused in ways that can be useful for study—but leave no doubt that extreme surveillance by one's government can be scary (cf. and contrast from a decade earlier, ENEMY OF THE STATE [1998]).

5. DRAMA, RDE, 27/IX/08