By Ben Miller
New and innovative films inevitably lead to imitators. 2018's Searching is the obvious predecessor to Profile, the new film from Russian filmmaker (and Searching producer) Timur Bekmambetov. While the film ratchets up the tension to almost unbearable levels, script issues and over-dramatic characterizations turn this film into a bloated mess, albeit a watchable one.
Valene Kane stars as Amy Whittaker, a struggling freelance journalist who has an idea for a story: what if she can get recruited by Syrian jihadists in order to discover their tactics? Amy creates a fake Facebook profile and in no time at all, "Melody" is befriended by Bilel (Shazad Latif), a London-born ISIS member living in Syria...
Amy tells her editor Vick (Christine Adams) about the story and gets the green light to proceed. Using her research skills and YouTube tutorials, Amy begins transforming herself into an Islamic convert living in London to contact Bilel face-to-face (through Skype). Amy, as Melody, interacts more and more with Bilel, endearing herself to him as he attempts to gain her trust and get her to Syria. All the while, the line between Amy and Melody becomes increasingly blurred.
The entirety of the narrative takes place on Amy's desktop. The film never strays from her computer and the majority of the story takes place through Skype calls. Amy is a neurotic and inconsistent character. One moment, she is the absolute driving force behind this story, and the next she is screaming in fear of the potential dangers. Other times, she seems exasperated while the next moment she is shown putting every ounce of effort into her story. Kane plays this character relatively straight and shifts between Amy's looseness to the more timid and reserved Melody. Her main tactic to seem younger to Bilel is to heighten and quiet her voice.
Latif has the much trickier role of humanizing a terrorist. His entire disposition is to exude charm. He is quick-witted and compliment-heavy while giving backstory to his character. The actor is strong but the script doesn't give us enough to understand why Bilel would go to such extremes.
Just as was the case with Searching, it takes a while to get accustomed to the general conceit. I watched the film on a large living room television, and still had to strain to see the small text dialogue through instant messenger chats. It takes about 30 minutes, but that discomfort wears off until you're attuned to the this environment. The film's final third is a masterclass of tension, where you feel true terror for Amy's safety. Her previous research has shown how dangerous things can get for women like Melody; violence can happen at any moment.
The film's main problem is a standard shortcoming with films about journalism: objectivity and journalistic standards. Amy gets so deep into the role of Melody that she begins falling in love with Bilel. Despite the dangers and her editor asking her to stop, she keeps pushing. Amy's life becomes so obsessed with Bilel, that she disconnects from everything else, hammering home the cliche about the lack of a work/life balance. While the film wants to reinforce 'the ends justifying the means,' Amy ignores every possible journalistic foundation on her way to information.
While an entertaining watch, Profile falls short due to poor characterization and cliched ethics. You would think Bekmambetov would have learned that the key to Searching's success was the strongly-written characters and not the innovation of its storytelling. C/C+