Cleanskin

For about the first hour, it feels like a run-of-the-mill action movie about a government operative (Sean Bean) forced to go outside the official organization policy to try and stop a terrorist (Abhin Galeya) from putting his destructive plans into action in London. The performances are good, if a bit predictable, and the action scenes are well shot and well executed. It’s fun to watch, but nothing really special. Just when you start getting comfortable, though, writer/director Hadi Hajaig takes the time to stop the action and take the audience on a journey into the terrorist’s past to see how he became the potential mass murderer we’ve been watching from the beginning. Seeing the reasons he wants to kill people doesn’t make him sympathetic, but it does add shading to the story that most films of this kind just don’t bother with. Such knowledge also underscores the agent’s actions in subtle, but revealing ways. By the time we’ve returned to the present day, the story has shifted, the stakes have been raised and the outcome is exciting and unpredictable.