Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Cleanskin Blu-ray Movie 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 Movie, Video Quality 

Cleanskin is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Entertainment One with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The biggest problem with this high definition presentation is its frequently washed out contrast, which deprives the image of fine object detail in midrange shots especially. The entire film tends to look like it's just slightly coated with a milky white light. Aside from this aspect, things look decently sharp and clear, though color is not especially well saturated and flesh tones tend to be on the pallid side of things (which may in fact just be a true and accurate representation of what British skin looks like). Close-ups tend to reveal considerably more detail, and in a couple of moments contrast improves dramatically and everything snaps nicely into place. There are no compression artifacts of any major import to report, and given reasonable expectations, most viewers should find Cleanskin an agreeable enough visual experience.

Cleanskin Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cleanskin has a nicely immersive lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which both nicely articulates the quieter dialogue scenes as well as delivers the goods in the film's bombastic action sequences. As boisterous as a number of shootouts and other violence prone segments in the film undeniably are, it was actually in some of the really more relatively mellow sonic moments that really caught my attention with their fine attention to detail. When Ewan, obviously ruminating over several troublesome memories, sits at his apartment kitchen table, we hear the sounds of children on a distant playground and a barking dog, offered with a really beautiful feeling of spaciousness and accurate ambience. Later, Ewan meets one of his handlers in a beautiful sylvan field and the ambient environmental sounds are lushly interwoven into the sound mix. Cleanskin offers a really nicely nuanced sound design, one that offers a surprisingly wide amount of dynamic range along with its excellent fidelity.

Cleanskin Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Cleanskin (HD; 22:37) is a standard EPK with Bean and other cast and crew discussing the film, intercut with snippets of the film as well as behind the scenes footage showing various sequences being shot.


• Trailer (HD: 1:36)

Cleanskin Blu-ray Movie, 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.