Drone

This worthwhile enterprise is frustratingly mishandled by Norwegian documentarist Tonje Hessen Schei, who previously directed a cogent exploration of the US media coverage of the war in Iraq in Independent Intervention (2006). Here, she essentially shapes available information to suit a thesis, so that it can hardly be called a work of investigative reportage. It's more like a piece of agitprop that seeks to denounce the United States for its use of drone warfare in the Waziristan/Pakistan region without due regard for the ramifications that such non-warrior forms of combat might have on future conflicts. In calling for accountability and transparency, Schei assembles some persuasive witnesses, including whistle-blowing drone operatives Brandon Bryant and Michael Haas (who expose the CIA policy of recruiting expert video gamers) and human rights activists Shahzad Akbar and Clive Stafford Smith, as well as those who manufacture drones, reflecting on the indiscriminate carnage they often cause. But the argument is enervatingly imbalanced and sensationalised, so it lacks both trenchancy and authority.