Eye Candy #157 - "Eagle Eye"

Eagle Eye: A ho-hum thriller that had some potential but was done in by a preposterous villain reveal, that left more questions than answers. Shia LeBeouf plays two twin brothers, one of whom is dead as the film begins. Jerry, the still living, sort-of-a-layabout brother, upon returning from his brother’s funeral, finds his apartment loaded to the gills with explosives and weapons, as well as access to a bank account with $700,000 in it. Can you say “frame up”? Simultaneously, single mother Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) is threatened by a woman on the phone to cooperate or her son will be killed. Seems both Jerry and Rachel are being manipulated by the same person or persons, and find themselves on the run from the FBI and the Air Force, as cogs in a much larger plot to assassinate the President and his cabinet. With plot devices cribbed from the much better “Wargames” (self-aware computers making their own decisions with far-reaching consequences), it stretches the level of human credulity to follow along. You’ve got to suspend a LOT of disbelief with this one. Lots of name actors here, including Michael Chiklis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Rosario Dawson, this film could have and should have been so much better. But it feels like an older, unpolished script because it is (the film was originally conceived in 1996). Yet another underwhelming entry from director DJ Caruso (“The Salton Sea”, “Taking Lives”). Woodchuck sez, “Disappointing.”