- Title: ITALY-VFF GOOD KILL PREMIERE "Good Kill" world premiere held in Venice
- Date: 5th September 2014
- Summary: VENICE, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 5, 2014) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF ACTOR ETHAN HAWKE ON RED CARPET FANS TAKING PHOTOS WITH MOBILE PHONES HAWKE WALKING TOWARDS CROWDS VARIOUS OF HAWKE SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS DIRECTOR ANDREW NICCOL AND WIFE, MODEL RACHEL ROBERTS, ON RED CARPET NICCOL AND ROBERTS POSING FOR PHOTOS ACTRESS ZOE KRAVITZ ARRIVING ON RED C
- Embargoed: 20th September 2014 13:00
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- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVAYREGZHEQBV0VR25QWEMCR9J2
- Story Text: Actors Ethan Hawke, January Jones and Zoe Kravitz on Friday (September 5) walked the red carpet for the world premiere of their Venice film festival competition entry "Good Kill".
In the movie Hawke stars as a drone pilot near Las Vegas who has a mental breakdown while killing targets "7,000 miles away" (11,000 km).
Stating at the outset that it is "based on actual events", the film directed by New Zealand-born Andrew Niccol, whose alien contact movie "Gattaca" was nominated for an Oscar, takes place at a drone operations base in 2010.
Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Niccol said the producers of what he said was the first fictional feature film about drone warfare had sought the cooperation of the U.S. Department of Defense in making the movie, but this had been declined.
Las Vegas and its casinos and neon provide a glitzy contrast to the stark world of mud huts and the desert landscape the drone operators see through their operating screens.
When they go home they return to houses in orderly suburban developments, a world away from the sprawling towns and villages that their drone missiles are attacking.
Hawke's character Major Thomas Egan, a former fighter pilot who has been recruited to bring his flight experience to the drone team, is one of the most skilled operators .
But Egan is troubled about "collateral damage" - meaning civilians - who are killed in the attacks. His misgivings grow tenfold when the Central Intelligence Agency assumes overall control of his team and begins ordering follow-up strikes minutes after a first missile has struck - thus ensuring that rescuers are killed.
The ramped-up killings of civilians causes him to drink heavily and his marriage suffers. At the same time, he feels that his skills as a fighter pilot are being supplanted by people whose talents lie in playing video games - which is what flying a drone is like except that, as his superior in the film points out, "Make no mistake about it, this is killing".
"Good Kill" is one of the 20 films in competition - the winners of which are announced on Saturday (September 6).
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