Review of Cleanskin (2012) by Tomas T — 18 Nov 2012

Cleanskin brings yet another political thriller with terrorists, shady government representatives, ultra violence and semi interesting thriller plot for the masses. Sound familiar? Unfortunately for Cleanskin, all above remaks are true which invokes a immediately a strong "Seen that before" feeling.

The Cleanskin plot in its simplicity tells of fictional terrorist bombings in modern day England. The only complexity factor being the fact that the story is moved forward in two parallel storylines: One from British secret service agent Ewan (Sean Bean) and another from young terrorist Ash's (Abhin Galeya) perspective.

The story contains all the usual cliches found in political thrillers: Ewan having lost his wife to terrorist bombing is an ideal candidate for hunting down terrorists without asking too many questions while Ash is slowly/reluctantly but surely being brainwashed by his fundamentalist Islam teacher Nabil (Peter Polycarpou) into extremist. Add in a lot of brutal violence and "oh so" clever end twist and you have another mediocre action film starred by Sean "Boromir" Bean.

The film is mediocre, predictable and will leave any permanent memories for sure, but it is not without merits. The acting through the film is quite good with Sean Bean giving a steady performance and Abhin Galevan being rather convincing terrorist hireling. Even so there is no point around it that Cleanskin is just another mediocre action/thriller. I just wish Sean Bean could break from the B-grade film's as he obviously has a lot more to offer than start mediocre films like Cleanskin.