Eagle Eye – Film

In January 2009, Stanford University dropout Jerry Shaw learns that his identical twin brother Ethan, an officer in the U.S. Air Force, has been killed. Following the funeral, Jerry is surprised to find $750,000 in his bank account and his apartment filled with illegal firearms and bomb making materials. He receives a phone call from a woman who warns that the FBI is about to arrest him and he needs to run. Disbelieving the voice, Jerry is caught by the FBI and interrogated by Supervising Agent Tom Morgan.

While Morgan confers with Air Force OSI Special Agent Zoe Pérez, the woman on the phone arranges for Jerry’s escape and directs him to Rachel Holloman, a single mother. The woman on the phone is coercing Rachel by threatening her son Sam, who is aboard the Capitol Limited en route to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with his school band. The woman on the phone helps the two avoid law enforcement by controlling networked devices, including traffic lights, mobile phones, automated cranes, and even power lines.

Meanwhile, the caller redirects a crystalline explosive to a gemcutter, who cuts it and fixes it into a necklace. Another man steals Sam’s trumpet in Chicago and fits the crystal’s sonic trigger into the tubing before forwarding it to Sam in Washington.

Agent Perez is summoned by Secretary of Defense George Callister to be read into Ethan’s job at the Pentagon. Ethan monitored the Department of Defense’s top-secret intelligence-gathering supercomputer, the Autonomous Reconnaissance Intelligence Integration Analyst (ARIIA; /ɑːriːə/). Callister leaves Perez with Major William Bowman and ARIIA to investigate Ethan Shaw’s death. Simultaneously, Rachel and Jerry learn that the woman on the phone is actually ARIIA, and that she has “activated” them according to the Constitution’s authorization to recruit civilians for the national defense.

Perez and Bowman find evidence that Ethan Shaw hid in ARIIA’s chamber and left to brief Callister. Afterwards, ARIIA smuggles Jerry and Rachel into her observation theater under the Pentagon. Both groups learn that after ARIIA’s recommendation was ignored and a botched operation in Balochistan resulted in the deaths of U.S. citizens, ARIIA concluded that “to prevent more bloodshed, the executive branch must be removed.” ARIIA is acting on behalf of “We the People”, and cites the Declaration of Independence (“whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”).

Belatedly, Jerry learns he has been brought to circumvent biometric locks placed by his twin that prevent ARIIA from activating Operation Guillotine, a military simulation of maintaining government after the loss of all presidential successors. Because Secretary Callister agreed with ARIIA’s abort recommendation regarding Balochistan, he is to be the designated survivor and new president after the crystal detonates at the State of the Union (SOTU).

Another of ARIIA’s agents extracts Rachel from the Pentagon and gives her a dress and the explosive necklace to wear to the SOTU. Sam’s school band has also been redirected to the United States Capitol to play for the president, bringing the trigger in Sam’s trumpet and the explosive together. Jerry is recaptured by Agent Morgan, who has become convinced of Jerry’s innocence. Before sacrificing himself to stop an armed MQ-9 Reaper sent by ARIIA, Morgan gives Jerry his weapon and ID with which to gain entrance to the Capitol. Arriving in the House Chamber, Jerry fires the handgun in the air to disrupt the concert before being shot and wounded by the Secret Service.

Sometime later, in April 2009, Callister reports that ARIIA has been decommissioned and recommends against building another; the Shaw twins and Agents Perez and Morgan receive awards for their actions; and Jerry attends Sam’s birthday party, earning Rachel’s gratitude and a kiss.