Barkhad Abdi's film career is building momentum. The "Captain Phillips" Oscar nominee has added a the military Drones thriller "Eye In the Sky," joining a cast led by Colin Firth.
Abdi is already booked to portray famous South African marathon runner Willie Mtolo in an upcoming biography, and to test his comedic chops in Judd Apatow's "Trainwreck." The new film, directed by Oscar winning South African director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi), returns him to a drama about African terrorism. Cue the official synopsis:
"A group of leading terror suspects gather in a secluded safe house in Nairobi, Kenya, to plan a suicide bombing mission. Meanwhile, British, Kenyan and American intelligence units, working together, keep the terrorists under real-time surveillance using cameras mounted on a remotely piloted, heavily armed MQ-9 Reaper Drone: an "Eye in the Sky." But as the British and Americans prepare to assassinate the terror suspects using a Hellfire missile, launched from the unseen drone flying at 20,000 feet, a little Kenyan girl walks into the kill zone, selling bread."
Firth, who is producing the film, seems likely to play the man with his finger on the launch button, caught in a crisis of conscience. No word on Abdi's role as of yet.
