FeistyUpper
If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
Kien Navarro
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Fleur
Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
antoniotierno
A rough, tough and extremely violent movie that sees Game of Thrones star Sean Bean swap doublet and sword for civvies and gun to play a British secret service agent who's ordered to going under cover to track down some missing Semtex explosive and the home-grown Islamist suicide cell possessing it. The title is spy-speak for terrorists with no criminal record, so unknown to the secret services that they're almost impossible to trace. Sean Bean is his usual tough minimalist self, but keeping into account he's the star of the show, he's not on screen a lot - a case of too much terrorist, not enough secret agent. The story certainly has ambition and there are some memorable fight scenes, but it also lacks the extra boost that could have pushed much more Bean's action-movie career.
Uriah43
This movie essentially begins with a British Secret Service agent named "Ewan" (Sean Bean) escorting a man by the name of "Harry" (Sam Douglas) who is carrying a briefcase full of high-grade explosives. It's at this time that a couple of terrorists intercept Harry and Ewan and after a gunfight take the briefcase. Not long afterward one of the terrorists detonates a bomb inside a London café. Since the explosives used in the bombing were part of the same batch taken during Ewan's botched assignment, he is tasked by his superiors to locate and kill those responsible. His mission, however, is both top-secret and off-the-books which means that nobody other than a new partner by the name of "Mark" (Tom Burke) knows anything about it. What Ewan and Mark don't realize is that the terrorists they are chasing also have certain connections and are equally intent upon carrying out their mission as well. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a decent film which is dark and dreary in some parts but requires the viewer's full attention due to the underlying subplot revealed only at the end. And even then I felt there could have been a bit more clarification. In any case, I enjoyed this movie for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.
carbuff
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."
jonathanruano
"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.
