Cleanskin Blu-ray Review
Down and dirty.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, September 8, 2012
Cleanskin is
not, repeat not, a film about personal hygiene, and in fact it deals with some dirty little facts
of contemporary life, including incipient terrorist attacks and the radicalization of young Muslim males by "mentors" who
prey upon their insecurities and disaffections, creating zealots and, often, dangerous extremists in the process. The
term "cleanskin" has become commonplace in London especially after that city experienced the devastating terrorist
bomb attacks of a few years ago. A cleanskin is a terrorist with no known former ties to extremist groups, one who
seemingly appears out of nowhere to suddenly wreak incredible havoc. In this film, the descriptive title applies to Ash
(Abhin Galeya), a young British Muslim who has been turned to "the dark side" and in the film's bristling opening
sequence is involved in an incredibly violent shootout with a British Secret Service Agent named Ewan (Sean Bean) who
is guarding an international arms dealer. Ash ends up getting away with a briefcase Ewan had been taking care of
which includes a huge stash of plastic explosives, enough to devastate London. Ewan's bosses (played by Charlotte
Rampling and James Fox) are understandably worried (being British, they don't actually outright panic) and insist that
Ewan track down Ash and retrieve the explosives. Playing out against this cat and mouse enterprise are a number of
flashbacks where writer-director Hadi Hajaig seeks to explicate what led Ash into this lifestyle. If the motives are a bit
hackneyed in
Cleanskin, the action is completely visceral and at times incredibly gruesome. While
Cleanskin wants to present a relatively nuanced take on one of the major problems facing contemporary
society, its tendency to concentrate on over the top, overly bloody knock down drag out fight sequences intentionally or
unintentionally undercuts any supposed intellectual aims Hajaig may have had with this film. This is not to say
Cleanskin isn't an involving thriller, because it is. It just doesn't go very far to explaining why things like "home
grown" terrorists happen.
Some people are going to react to
Cleanskin's attempt to at least partially humanize a homegrown terrorist with
a
resounding, "
Who gives a flying fig? The guy is a terrorist, for crying out loud!" And really in this day and age
when virtually everyone has been touched in one way or the other, whether vicariously or not, by the devastating
results
of terrorism, who could blame them?
Cleanskin perhaps exacerbates this problem, though, by giving Ash a
relatively paltry set of reasons for wanting to be a terrorist. Yes, he's "radicalized" by an overweening Imam, but the
central reason that seems to set him off is a completely silly one—seeing his girlfriend (a non-Muslim, by the way)
cavorting with a British tough. If that's what's causing terrorism these days, we'd all better be worried.
On the other side of the spectrum, though, Hajaig is considerably more successful, and it's perhaps ironic that the other
side is that of the British intelligence apparatus. Hajaig posits a bureaucracy that is rather in tune with the new
"darker"
James Bond of the last few 007 outings, an agency that doesn't mind if its agents go a bit rogue now and then as long
as
the job gets done. Bean is exceptionally effective as a former soldier obviously suffering from post traumatic stress
disorder who pours his angst into a veritable whirlwind of sometimes questionable violence.
There are two supposed twists inserted late in the film which most diehard espionage fans are going to see coming
from a mile off. Without completely blowing the surprise, suffice it to say when cast members already have a glowering
menace, even when they're supposedly on the good side of the equation, there may be a bit of less than subtle
foreshadowing going on. The fact that Hajaig doubles down on the premise doesn't work in the film's favor, although
Cleanskin does have a nice little denouement at the end which is both fitting and a perfect summation of Ewan's
tendency not to do things by the book.
Cleanskin is best when it focuses on the action, and the good news is that the film is crammed full of some
spectacular set pieces. While some may question Ewan's competency as a bodyguard in an early sequence, after he
sees a building guard thrown off of an interior balcony and doesn't immediately rush to protect his charge, the battle
that ensues is frightening and extremely well staged. A number of later "interchanges" with various people involved
(sometimes tangentially) to the theft of the explosives become rather close to the exploits of the Liam Neeson character
in
Taken as he routs bad guys right and left to find his daughter. Ewan manhandles just about everyone with
whom he comes into contact, and there are some decidedly politically incorrect beat downs in this film, including a
hapless prostitute and more than one Muslim.
Hajaig isn't going to win any plaudits from those on the right wing side of things with a long "confessional" given by Ash
via videocam which plays out as interstitials between his final mission to set off a bomb. When a number of British
citizens are "interviewed" on television about the incipient nature of terrorism and one woman decries not getting at
the root cause of the disease, treating only the symptoms with increased security and heavy handed deportations, it's
not hard to see where Hajaig's sympathies lie. The politics may in fact be fairly muddled in
Cleanskin, but when
it comes to down and dirty action, Hajaig delivers an incredibly impactful film.
Cleanskin Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
There are no doubt going to be those who see
Cleanskin and react, no matter how well intentioned the film is, with
a resounding, "There's no excuse for terrorism." Hajaig hedges his bets in a few too many ways here, giving Ash some
"plausible deniability" and also depicting the character as a basically good kid who gets sucked into something he can't
control. (One scene where Ash attempts—unsuccessfully—to keep a couple of "civilian casualties" from meeting their fate is
an especially heavy handed attempt to humanize the character.) But that all goes out the window when Ash straps on a
bomb and sets out to murder
lots of civilians, all of them just as innocent as the two he supposedly wanted to
protect earlier. It's that kind of muddle headed approach that sinks the political content of the film. Hajaig might have been
better off to have just concentrated on one of the
real terrorists—the kind who make no bones about wanting a
Jihad and who aren't shy about killing to achieve their aims. As it stands,
Cleanskin isn't entirely effective, but it
does have a nicely brooding undertone which helps to establish a sense of doom and urgency. Bean is extremely effective
and several of the supporting cast are equally impressive. Though the video here isn't quite what it could have been, the
audio is largely superb. This isn't a film for everyone, but for those who can take
Cleanskin's political posturing with
a grain of salt, there's quite a bit to enjoy here.
