Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

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.

Solid and gritty British thriller that feels a bit slow compared to your typical non-stop Hollywood action movie due to its many stops and starts and flashbacks. The plot is reasonably unpredictable and the film takes pains to flesh out the terrorists characters so that they are not just cardboard fodder to be blown away by the troubled anti-hero. "Yippie ki yay, m-f," wouldn't work well here at all. I suspect that one of the higher goals of this film was to "open minds" in the direction of greater understanding and tolerance towards people of one particular religion (you can guess which one), but it had the opposite effect on me, so "Sorry Charlie!" as far as that goes. Be forewarned that there are some scenes of realistic and harsh violence, but so what's new nowadays anyhow. This is definitely not one of Sean Bean's finest movies, but it is still worth the time if this is the kind of subject matter you're seeking. In any event, it's much better than most American films along roughly similar lines, as I discovered after losing an hour and forty-five minutes to "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" immediately before this. After watching "Cleanskin", "Jack Ryan" seemed childish and dopey in comparison and found itself summarily demoted from its original 6 stars down to 4. What can I say, "War is hell."

"Clearskin" is an entertaining film about a burnt out secret agent (Sean Bean) tracking down Islamic terrorists who are responsible for a series of bombings in London. This plot interfaces with another more interesting story about how a bright young man Ash (Abhin Galeya) is gradually radicalized by his charismatic mentor, cleric Nabil (Peter Polycarpou). Ash eventually becomes a terrorist leader and masterminds one bombing after the other. Sean Bean does a capable job playing the secret agent, but Abhin Galeya is the actor to watch. Galeya, although not given the best of scripts, is surprisingly successful at depicting Ash as a young man with very troubling ideas and also a strong human dimension. One wonders, when seeing this film, what Galeya is capable of when given a much better script.This movie is not without drawbacks. The story about Ash's radicalization, while interesting, is also overly simplistic. The movie seems to be suggesting that Ash became radicalized because his relationship with Kate (Tuppence Middleton) did not work out. I'm sorry, but that reason does not really make any sense. The other problem with the film was its silly twist at the end, which could have been left out. "Cleanskin" plays much better as a straightforward film about a secret agent doing the often unpleasant job of killing off terrorists.

Seemed good for the first punchy 30 mins then it wandered off into some other unrelated flashback from a few years back with new characters I didn't care about, then fluttered back to today where something happened with some other characters but I wasn't really sure where it fit in or why it happened. By this time I was no longer sure who was who. Then we went back to the past and some other story line then - whoosh - back to the present and the main character suddenly acting like a maniac. I was starting to feel giddy. I don't know what I can tell you. It was slow, confusing, lacked suspense or mystery and really just got more and more boring when it shouldn't have been. I think the idea was OK but it was poorly executed and the director treated viewers like idiots. Why do film- makers think a "meaningful" movie has to be boring and plod along while they bang the point into your brain over and over with all the subtlety of a cartoon sledge-hammer wielded by Baby Hughey. You can make great entertaining commercially viable movies and still make a point, honest! And why do some viewers think a movie has to be boring to be a "good meaningful movie" so they give it a high rating because it had "a point". Sorry, having "a point" is nowhere near enough. THis is yet another movie where I lost interest in all the characters & their meandering story/s half way through and stopped watching. The whole premise was somewhat naive, obvious and immature but could have been made into a much more powerful and creative statement.