Director Andrew Niccol is best known for creating futuristic dystopias, like Gattaca or In Time. But he's often at his best when he creates a dystopia that's set in a darker version of the "now," like Lord of War. Check out the trailer for Good Kill, where Niccol is holding up a dark mirror to the present.

In Good Kill, Niccol reunites with his Gattaca star Ethan Hawke, who plays an ex-fighter pilot who's come home and become a drone pilot. And he's struggling with trauma and rage, but also with the questionable morality and general strangeness of killing people on the other side of the world, via remote control. War has become a "first-person shooter," because we can kill on our video screens, as Bruce Greenwood helpfully explains.

None of the stuff in this movie looks particularly subtle — but subtlety has never been Niccol's strong suit, nor has it been a strong point in dystopias generally. What does look fascinating about this film is that it applies a science-fictional vantage point to the world we live in right now, and asks "What if you could kill people with remote-controlled flying robots?," as if that were a speculation rather than a stone cold reality.

No release date for Good Kill yet, but it has distribution through IFC Films. [via First Showing]