Drone (2015)

Pretty Good

best movie i've ever seen.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is truly a masterpiece of a documentary tapping into a topic so many in the US are afraid to touch on. The drone operators that have been speaking out against the drone program in the aftermath of the DRONE documentary, have done so risking their own safety. Many have been harassed online, and attempts have been made to discredit them. DRONE is not only credible when it comes to sources, it also features the first drone operator to actually tell the truth about the drone program and how it is destroying the lives of young operators lured into the serve-your-country-blindly trap. The documentary is well balanced when it comes to objectivity, and has been awarded several awards like the Norwegian Amanda for best documentary, Cinema for peace award for Most Valuable Documentary of the Year, Amnesty International award, and others. There have been many attempts to discredit both the film maker and the operator. That only strengthens my belief in what is revealed in the documentary about the drone program.

There are few topics, in my view, more important than the discussion of how drone and other technological weapons forged in our modern network-centric age are utilized. This film attempts to broach the topic but it has one fatal flaw.While the director, Tonje Hessen Schei, tells audiences in screenings that she has told the story from "both sides of the drones," she has markedly missed the mark like a hellfire missile following a laser malfunction. Tonje does not present reality, rather she presents actors ready to recite lines on command.The "drone operators" in her film, and especially her star and literal poster child, Brandon Bryant, devastate the credibility of her film once any research is done.As the film "Brandon Bryant the Documentary: Drones & Deceptions" demonstrates, DRONE from Hessen Schei lacks credibility by engaging an actor who will say anything for the camera; a great benefit to a fictional work, but quite fatal to the credibility of a documentary.

This is an interesting documentary but hardly groundbreaking. We've been debating American policy on using drones for a decade or more. This documentary does very little to answer any questions. We hear from soldiers, citizens, business leaders and policymakers who are either opposed to drone use or favor it. It simply puts pictures to a debate we've been having for a decade.The most interesting and perhaps the most important question is left totally unanswered: If not drones then what? More troops? Do nothing? If you're looking for answers, this is not the documentary where you'll find any.

As a teacher I seldom see movies with true teaching potential for my students. This was an exception. We are, in our part of the world, used to think of ourself as the good guys. The US, however misguided at times, is a force for good in the world. President Obama is a Nobel Peace Price-laureate, for heaven's sake. -And our news networks keep catering to this view of the world.But someone somewhere disagrees with this perspective, and you know what: They just might be on to something. And whether they are right or wrong, they are growing in number. And something really is rotten in the state of (the Union).In this documentary we meet ordinary people who've been the victims of drone warfare, who want to tell their story. We meet humanitarians who try to help out in this regard. And last but certainly not least: We meet some of the people who themselves have been a part of the drone warfare.If nothing else, this documentary made my students think critically about what role we play in the world, and how we are perceived in the various regions of the world. And maybe even more important: They started questioning the ways in which we as a country make use of our military resources, and how we treat the men and women who serve.I myself also learned a lot from this documentary, and recommend it wholeheartedly.