Review of Eagle Eye Starring Shia LaBeouf

Posted on February 12, 2009

Cover of Eagle Eye

We recently watched the DVD of Eagle Eye starring Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monoghan. The film did very well at the box office, making $101,440,743 domestically, with over $76 million in foreign sales. Eagle Eye is an sf thriller that focuses on the erosion of privacy in our everyday lives.

Shia LaBeouf is Jerry Shaw, a seeming loser who can't pay his rent. When his normally skimpy bank account suddenly has $750,000 in it, he can't believe his good fortune. When he heads home, he finds his apartment stuffed with weapons, cash, passports and just about everything you'd need to be a terrorist. A phone call tells him to leave before he's arrested, but he ignores the advice -- and the cops show up. The mysterious female voice on the phone then helps him escape from FBI custody. He then meets a young mother named Rachel (Michelle Monoghan) who has been told her son will be killed if she doesn't do as the voice tells her to. Soon Jerry and Rachel are on cross-country mission, all the while being chased by the FBI. The pair is being ruthlessly manipulated, but it's unclear whether their mission is for evil or for good. When the identity of the voice is revealed in a major plot twist, the film takes a different turn as the players race towards a final, deadly confrontation.

Shia LaBeouf does a good job at making Jerry likable, and Michelle Monoghan is serviceable as the frightened young mother. Billy Bob Thornton steals every scene he is in as the FBI agent who is on Jerry's trail. Rosario Dawson is underused as an Air Force investigator, but she makes use of the little screen time she has. Eagle Eye is an entertaining thriller with lots of action that would make a fun choice for movie night.




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