Director DJ Caruso and quartet of screenwriters concoct a high-tech cautionary tale of government espionage and dwindling personal privacy in the new thriller EAGLE EYE. While the film is long on car chase sounds and furious motion, the pot-boiling plot fails to signify more than a standard action flick. Given the pedigree of this project — Steven Spielberg as executive producer, matched with the dynamic storytelling duo of Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci producing — the results should have been more exciting and original.  Yet the relentless story borrows too much from better-made suspense films to earn high marks for intrigue, and explores too little of its characters' humanity to inspire viewer sympathy. Star Shia LaBeouf continues his string of amiable performances which attempt to elevate the material into something special.  Co-star Michelle Monaghan turns in a serviceable effort as well, but the script simply doesn't back up their work with its emphasis on quick-cut cars, trains and cranes in motion. EAGLE EYE keeps the tension cranked and its moral dilemma clear, making it a worthwhile roller coaster ride if that's all want from the film.  But given the larger issues at the core of this mystery, the plot does a hasty fly-by of the potential drama which should be evoked by these two reluctant recruits forced to engage an unseen enemy.

In an unfortunate creative contradiction, EAGLE EYE's strength as a fast-paced mission engaging ordinary citizens to fight anti-American terrorism is also its weakness.  The result is a glossy mash-up of Bruckheimer's hit ENEMY OF THE STATE and Hitchcock's classic THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH: add equal amounts of high-tech government surveillance and a conspiratorial assassination attempt, then edit to distraction.  What begins with a promising 21st century spin on the formula of an innocent citizen caught in the wrong place eventually twists itself into a convoluted, prolonged chase to confront a shadowy and faceless adversary.  The goal to defeat this enemy is far less satisfying as it is inevitable. 

While LaBeouf and Monaghan make the best of their characters, down and out copy clerk Jerry Shaw and single mother Rachel Hollowman, they never really develop any on-screen chemistry — mainly because the mysterious female voice tracking their every move via cell phone and Big Brother surveillance rarely lets them stop long enough to interact.  There's a good reason why Cary Grant gave such indelible and entertaining performances in similar Hitchcock thrillers such as NORTH BY NORTHWEST: because Grant acted alone, and the most company he ever had on his perilous journey to the truth was his immaculately tailored suit.  EAGLE EYE attempts to twist this successful formula by pairing Jerry with Rachel, but even the plot admits the duo are forced together artificially as their actual fates are not entwined at all save for coincidence.  Worse, since the story's focus is split between Jerry and Rachel, without any adversarial challenge between them, they each end up being half the hero and so half as effective in garnering audience interest.

Shia LaBeouf is making an early career of playing above his scripts, as this film and his previous turn for INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL demonstrate.  There is no mistaking his big screen charisma and one must salute the often quirky but engaging choices he makes within a given role which help him stand out.  Yet where LaBeouf enlightened TRANSFORMERS and DISTURBIA with his winning slacker-loser portrayals, here the all-seeing, all-controlling EAGLE EYE ends up running the actor through its mechanical paces.  Similarly, Monaghan expands her efforts as a female lead here over her victim in distress turn in the Kurtzman/Orci-written MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III, but again she gets little more to work with than the generalized sympathetic mom rushing to save her boy.  Both valiant efforts, joined by Rosario Dawson (Agent Zoe Perez) and Michael Chiklis (Defense Secretary Callister) and Billy Bob Thornton (Agent Thomas Morgan) who all end up sprinting through and past deeper characterizations just to keep up with the breakneck relay of plot points.

Ultimately responsibility for these dramatic oversights must fall to four scribes who hammered out the complex and occasionally gripping script: Dan McDermott (also credited with the story), the relatively untested team of John Glenn and Travis Adam Wright, and hired polisher Hillary Seitz.  More often than not, a roster of writers such as this hints at a long and laborious development process — and indeed, exec producer Spielberg first hatched the story behind EAGLE EYE several years ago.  Production notes tell of the main challenge in forging this tale was to humanize its otherwise ominously technological concept.  While the film hits that target at times amid all the fast-cutting flurry, its aim is not consistent enough through two hours to engage minds and hearts as often as it spikes one's adrenaline.

Likewise, director DJ Caruso fared much better with his characters amid the intimate, somewhat claustrophobic confines of DISTURBIA, though he still cribbed notes on suspense from Hitchcock considerably in that film as well.  With the story so focused on LaBeouf, Caruso allowed (or was forced) to let the tension build slowly out of personality forces and flaws, seducing the audience into identifying with its hero.  Alas no such breathing space is afforded in EAGLE EYE, which stays relentlessly on track like a bullet train, leaving both actors and audience breathless to simply keep up with the numerous collisions and chases.  As Jerry and Rachel's lives are dominated by the unknown yet all-knowing voice on their phones, commanding and punishing their actions, so the mechanical plot demands of the script overrun any slower-paced struggles to invest humanity in these unwilling agents.

Technically, the film never fails to deliver the correct look and visceral punch from its action and stunt sequences, with credit due to stunt coordinator Gregg Smrz and his team.  Computer generated fakery is forsaken for the palpable gut reflexes earned only by real, physical action and effects on the set, though Jim Page's strobe-style editing tends to blur the full impact of such realism by splintering it into blurry shards of intercut frames.  Similarly this rapid-fire editorial style tends to deconstruct rather than enhance the otherwise fine work by cinematographer Dariusz Wolski and production designer Tom Sanders, who evoke suitably mysterious tech-noir moods and cold conspiratorial tones.  Brian Tyler's score does its best to live up to the on-screen bombast, but his compositions never get a true chance to contribute as much to the film as his previous work has shown possible.

Ultimately the relentless jack hammer plot of American citizens turned into virtual puppets serving an authoritarian program relegates EAGLE EYE to a well-polished video game of a film.  Eager to feed its target audience's addiction to breakneck action and steel-smashing car chases, it can't help but sacrifice human drama to this steamrolling cause.  A flashy example of modern cinematic eye candy, EAGLE EYE loses sight of what it could have and should have been in a long tradition of entertaining wrong-man thrillers which one their day.