Picture this: a melancholy fellow having recently lost his twin brother gets set up on a blind date with a lonely single mom whose boy is away at music camp. At first they don't trust each other, but when they realize they've both been manipulated, they unite against the anonymous female voice on the phone. Their "date" has all the trappings of a blind date gone awry. They must elude the police who mistakenly think they've done something wrong. They crash the car but get away. Whoever set them up issues meticulous instructions by cell phone. (Her driving directions would put Tom Tom to shame.) Third parties out of nowhere help them out, and the uncooperative ones get fired. They're given time to change into more appropriate attire as the occasion warrants. Although they don't fly first class, they are provided with the right shots beforehand. And at the end of the date the fellow achieves closure over the death of his brother, while the woman gets to dress up and watch her boy's music group perform for the president.

Let's add a little bit of sci-fi. They had not been set up by a person at all, but by a super computer running a program called Artificial Reconnaisance (AR). The computer has all too much access to our personal data which is all too easy to mine from the many sources where we give it out. Furthermore, the ubiquitous cell phone makes access to us all too hard to avoid.

Now, we add just enough history for the computer to be dangerous. The Declaration of Independence provides justification for a coup d'état when the current government acts contrary to the interests of the citizens, which we see happening in the opening scenes. The AR computer tried to implement Operation Guillotine to assassinate the top 12 rulers in government but was thwarted by good twin Ethan who put in place a biometric lock. The computer declared Ethan an enemy of the state and caused his accident but now needs the other twin Jerry to defeat the lock. Part of the scheme involves the woman Rachel and her son's trumpet set to trigger a football field size explosion when he hits the "F" note at the end of The Star Spangled Banner played for the president. This reminds one of the piano piece being played for the president at the end of Get Smart, but before we criticize the Secret Service for letting all these lethal instruments slip by, I'd like to point out that they did better in the chase than did the FBI, the police, and the Air Force combined.

There's a speech at the end that tells us that "Sometimes the very measures we put into place to safeguard liberty become threats to liberty itself." The speaker was referring to the Declaration of Independence which the computer took too far. Robert H. Bork, in Slouching Towards Gomorrah (New York: HarperCollins, 1996) p. 57, writes, "It was indeed stirring rhetoric, entirely appropriate for the purpose of rallying the colonists and justifying their rebellion to the world. But some caution is in order. The ringing phrases are hardly useful, indeed may be pernicious, if taken as they commonly are, as a guide to action, governmental or private. Then the words press eventually towards extremes of liberty and the pursuit of happiness that court personal license and social disorder." Perhaps the closest contemporary application to this concept can be found in another speech. Remember Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream? He said, "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the unalienable right of liberty ..." A lot has been made of "fulfilling that pomissory note."

From Bork, p. 238: Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer,—"When quotas replace merit, everybody suffers," Forbes, February 15, 1993, p. 102—estimated that affirmative action's direct and indirect costs in 1991 were about $115 billion; opportunity costs added another $236 billion; the lowering of gross national product may have been about 4 percent. Worse, it all may be wasted. The authors quote Charles Murray: 'There's hardly a single outcome—black voting rights, access to public accommodation, employment, particularly in white collar jobs—that couldn't have been predicted on the basis of pre-1964 trend lines.' 'That's pretty devastating,' the authors say. 'It suggests that we have spent trillions of dollars to create an outcome that would have happened even if the government had done nothing.'"

I'm not trying to stir any pot here, but the one suggested in the movie Eagle Eye. Pay particular attention to Jerry's poker game at the start of the movie. One fellow folds and another fellow is about to fold when Jerry gives him a stirring speech about what a dream date he can have if he wins the pot. Instead of inviting his girl over to watch a movie on the tube, he can wine and dine her and treat her to a night on the town. The guy catches the dream and calls Jerry with $20, showing him kings and queens, which unfortunately can't beat four aces. So he is right back to having the lackluster date he was going to have in the first place, but he lost money to get there.

My forebears are from Virginia, so I end up celebrating Robert E. Lee Day while the whole town is celebrating MLK's birthday. But like my Jewish neighbor who still sends her nonJewish family Christmas cards, for the sake of a review that touches on this subject I've mentioned it, although I'm not going to dwell on it. What I think is cool about the movie is how Ethan draws attention to his shift end and signals with a flash light in Morse Code where he's hid the goods. Did you know that the first use of military telecommunications was in Manasses, Virginia during the Civil War? The computer though it understood the War of Independence, didn't know its Civil War history very well.

"Eagle Eye" is a fun adventure movie with lots of suspense and a tad of romance, sci fi, and history thrown in. I recommend it regardless of which holiday you celebrate.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older