Cleanskin (2012)

Interesting little film about a suicide bomber and the pursuit to find him.

Words will probably fail me - this film takes real life, horrific events and exploits them with a ludicrous conspiracy theory - look if powers are really that clever and evil we might as well give up now. Did anyone who enjoyed the film actually take the time to count up the bodies and consider the point of it all? Utterly repulsive conceit.But what about the action? I realize it's a British thing to make their heroes tough by losing rather than ever victorious like (modern) Hollywood, but was there ever a more inept agent than Sean? Completely useless as a bodyguard, even when given a second chance, then gets beat about by a uni kid, and not stopping a moment to check in, or check out, when coats turn. Can't get to one bad guy in a month, but no problem getting to the other /eyeroll/ And what's the deal with Ash? Oh look at those movie star looks! Oh his hot girlfriend looks great without her top! Oh he's so distraught over Muslims being slaughter all over the globe, because, uh because, yeah, because he's like young, and yeah concerned and whatnot. And shamed by a lunatic Chechen baby-killer because he hasn't suffered enough. Speaking of which, the movie totally cops out. Do we see the severed limbs and spilled guts from the bombings? no. The murder of the baby? no. The decapitation? no. What we do see is Ash limping across the ballroom floor in a waiter's uniform like Lurch from the Adam's Family. I started giggling, so I guess it wasn't a total loss. Despicable effort. Sean and Charlotte and Hadi should be ashamed.

I really enjoyed this intelligent, tough, uncompromising portrayal of a British agent trying to catch a "cleanskin" (no terrorist history or connections) middle eastern young man who is recruited as a jihadist. Sean Bean does a nice portrayal of a troubled war veteran who loves his country. The other main characters are all very believable in the roles they play. It is possible to understand how a seemingly reasonable Arab leader could recruit "normal" young men into the movement and gradually progress them to suicide bombers. We see even more of this now that so many westerners have joined ISIS.The tension builds throughout this movie. You are really unsure of what exactly is going on until the very end. I enjoyed this movie as much as Arlington Road, another hidden gem of a film, which is similar in many ways.(Spoiler) I liked that the film does not make anyone either good or bad. Some, perhaps all, of the characters do horrible things but they have their reasons. And the reasons make sense.

In London, some fat guy is transporting something in a briefcase. He's ambushed by a single assailant who shoots everyone, including his two bodyguards, and takes off with the case. One of the injured bodyguards, Ewan, turns out to be an undercover government agent.Then we meet some Muslim terrorists as they blowup a café. Ewan is called in by some shadowy higher-up, Charlotte. He's in trouble for letting terrorists steal what turned out to be explosives in the briefcase, which were used for the attack. Now she tasks him with an off-the-books operation to get the explosives back by any means necessary. She partners him with some young guy she trusts.In flashbacks we learn a lot more about the terrorists, or at least one of them--Ash. He was a law student, but given a hard time by prejudiced white people. He had a white girlfriend who's rather slutty. At some point he met a radical cleric who recruits him. His first mission together with some other kid and an imported killer was to kill a former military. The mission has some problems but it works. So Ash climbs ranks in the terrorist cell despite having some second thoughts about the death of innocents.Meanwhile, Ewan and partner go after the fat guy's prostitute. She was paid to remove bullets from the guy's gun on that fateful day. Ewan sets up a trap for her contact, but they end up killing him and get no info. Next, Charlotte, gives them a location of a guy. They find him, confront him, he knows nothing about anything, but Ewan sets him on fire. Something that will nag him because he thinks the guy really knew nothing of the explosives.As Ash and some other guy prepare for some attack, Ewan arrives, kills the other guy and watches Ash disguised by the helmet escape on motorcycle. Ash runs into his ex and they hook up and for a moment he seems to mellow out a bit. Ewan then gets a tip about the next attack at a hotel. There he confronts Ash but then another explosion hits. As a result of the homegrown terrorist attacks, England elects a war hawkish neocon government. The government claims they had no idea about the attacks.Back at his room Ewan is attacked...by his partner! He then goes trough the jacket that he took from the guy he set on fire. He finds a key. In a PO box he finds files, videos. Turns out the guy Charlotte had him kill was another undercover agent, who was after the radical cleric. The guy also realized that the government was up to no good. That all these operations were to achieve a political electoral goal. Ewan then confronts Charlotte.Cleanskins is an interesting political action thriller so much richer than similar Hollywood movies devoid of any depth and unwilling to offend their favorite politicians regardless of what those do. But it's also somewhat ambiguous. It gives Muslim terrorists a voice and we get to see them as regular folk. But we also get the stereotypical business of the radical cleric who radicalizes these young idealists, who promises them paradise if they blow themselves up. There's no talk of virgins, but interestingly, when Ash asks if he will see his dead family in paradise, the cleric promises that when he sees them it will be as if only a single day had passed. And perhaps that's what motivates Ash more than whatever else he's promised. Too much is made of his relationship with the party girl.I've never been a fan of Sean Bean. This perhaps is a role well suited for him since he doesn't have to say much. A bit distracting are some unrealistic sequences. As when Ewan and partner want to grab a bad guy silently yet run around the neighborhood guns drawn and smoking.But it's the political angle that makes the movie standout. And the courage the filmmakers had, this day and age, and in England no less, to portray the government killing or letting others kill their own people for the sake of elections and for the sake of the war machinery. Coincidentally, I've just been reading reviews of the book JKF and the Unspeakable, which addresses this exact issue and shows that governments aren't exactly reluctant to do just that.