Fantastic film + seriously underrated!

As you replied to my post I'll reply to yours mr kid sir!

Yes underrated it is but maybe it'll get discovered on DVD.

This looked more like an American production than British.

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just finished watching it and i agree
a great movie with depth and subtext that raises many questions with world events
a true spy movie ian fleming would be proud of

if u cant sleep someone is dreaming you're awake

bravo!

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I just finished watching the movie, and I got to say that it was definitely one of the better "terrorist-thrillers" out there. However, the reviews the movie has gotten are far from nice, in fact, one of the larger newspapers here in the UK, The Guardian, gave it one out of five stars. Now, the movies is not perfect, but it deserved way better than that.

I believe this has more to do with very sensitive subject of in-land terrorism, than the actual quality of the film. In contrary to other films in this genre, the depiction of terrorists was more complexed than the traditional woman-beating/western hating arab (True lies, rules of engagement etc). Instead of just focusing on the many nuances of government involvement (Body of lies), an unusual level of depth is given to the terrorist: the main antagonist, Ash.

On one hand, he got his love interest, and on the other hand he feels frustrated about his place in the world. He is very skeptical towards the western model of justice, but however, his descent into a terrorist is not without conflict, as he questions and voices his dismay to the brutality, and the cause. In short, he is not ONLY depicted as a cold-blooded killer, but also as a human.

Interestingly, the government officials are depicted as cruel and dispassionate in their quests to achieve their goals, and to operate without restricitons (burning the guy alive, beating/threatening prostitute, murder missions).
Ash's love interest, an English girl, is indirectly hinted to be an alcoholic who resorts to drinking in order to cope with lonelyness, a subliminal shot at western culture.

Now, these factors do explain why the movie has gotten such bad reviews here in UK. All they see is that the foreign terrorist is a person people can sympathise with, the government is evil, and on top of it all, the director has an arabic sounding name. Thus, I am sure this movie hit a few nerves and evoked emotional responses that may have interfered with their reviews.

I give it an 8/10, could've had more depths, the terrorist leader was a bit stereotype and his rhetoric should have been pretty see-through for a smart guy like Ash. Additionally, more room should've been given to Ash, and they should've been more detailed with his transformation to terrorist (his trip to afghanistan).

Very good film really enjoyed it, It was nice how it wasn't all focused on the good guy but also the events of the terrorist ash and his point of view on things opposed to just one side what I also liked about the film how alot of truth is involved that Big speech ash made before he got shot that *beep* does happen, and has been happening for a very long time , so yeah really good film with alot of education involved also.