Peter Bradshaw 

Cleanskin – review

Mediocre action and unpleasant violence are all this leaden counterterrorism thriller has to offer, writes Peter Bradshaw
  
  

cleanskin film still sean bean
A washout … Cleanskin Photograph: PR

A leaden, laboriously acted, exploitative thriller about a "cleanskin": a UK-based Islamic terrorist unknown to the security services. Sean Bean stars as a grizzled ex-soldier the spooks have secretly commissioned to take out a suspected suicide bomber. It plays like a lad-mag fantasy of counterterrorist work, juxtaposing mediocre action sscenes with a lot of deadly serious Islamist rhetoric. The ending is an exasperating cop-out, and we get a scene in which a woman gets brutally, explicitly assaulted.

 

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