A perceptive drama about a journalist who online infiltrates ISIS 8 years ago . Based on a true story, it's a cautionary tale for all of us users. In theaters.
Profile
Online seductions are many and varied and not new to those of us who engage with the Internet regularly. Profile takes the online search further than Searching or Her did by showing an undercover journalist, Amy (Valene Kane), being recruited by ISIS as easily as you might order a pair of socks from Amazon. Based on a true story, Profile has cultural and global inferences as many as the seduction techniques.
Brit reporter Amy interacts with recruiter Bilel (Shizad Latif), who thinks she is a naïve young aspirant for ISIS. Such is the power of the Internet to bring world computer travelers together in real time showing real emotions. In a sub-genre of the Stockholm Syndrome, Amy falls for Bilel and eventually agrees to marry him.
Profile doesn’t give much information on Amy’s background to justify why she falls for the dangerously charismatic Bilel, except for her clueless boyfriend, Matt (Morgan Watkins), who is one of the reasons such an attractive woman would go to the other side. Yet, the film is not really about being a recruit for global cult ISIS; it is about how the medium of the Internet, with the dexterity it gives to cons like Bilel, makes crooks out of the smartist of us.
Or should I say in Bilel’s case, to a charming grifter are given the tools to conquer the world. On an esthetic note, Valene and Shizad are gifted performers who could sell just about anything. Likewise, director Timur Bekmambetov and writers Britt Poulton and Olga Kharina have crafted a thriller that shows the awful potential of the Net, even more than the notorious ISIS.
Persuasion has a new level of sophistication: Witness two smart operatives persuading each other. Profile will add to your understanding of human emotion and the power of the computer.
Profile
Director: Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch)
Screenplay: Bekmambetov, Britt Poulton (Them That Follow), Olga Kharina (Yolki 2), based on Anna Erelle novel, In the Skin of a Jihadist
Cast: Valene Kane (Gangs of London), Shazad Latif (Commuter)
Run Time: 1h 46 m
Rating: R
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com
