It’s hard to imagine a film more timely than Gavin Hood’s “Eye in the Sky,” which follows a high-ranking British military officer — Helen Mirren as the conflicted Colonel Katherine Powell — who is tasked with directing a top-secret drone operation. The tension-filled film sees Powell and her subordinates often struggling with the decisions they have to make while in pursuit of a band of terrorists in Kenya, a mission that is made all the more complicated when they are asked to target a kill zone that includes various innocent bystanders, including a young girl.

And, Mirren, as ever, is more than happy to discuss the kind of topical questions the film raises — and so much more — when asked about them. At a luncheon held in the film’s honor today at Manhattan’s Le Bernardin restaurant, Mirren and director Gavin Hood participated in a twenty minute chat moderated by...