Profile is a suspenseful story about a London reporter who went undercover to pretend to be a convert to Islam. She wanted terrorists to engage her online and try to recruit her and bring her to Syria. They did! The film is based on a true story.
Profile is told completely on a laptop screen. I reviewed Missing earlier, a similar kind of storytelling. We live our lives on our computers, so telling stories this way is becoming a thing. This example of the genre is directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
Valene Kane plays Amy, a reporter. She is broke, behind on her rent, and constantly nagged for the story by her boss, Vick (Christine Adams). Amy wants to investigate the reports of European women being lured to Syria by terrorists. They are sold into sex trafficking rings once they go there.
Amy creates a fake profile on Facebook. She says she recently converted to Islam and wants to meet people to talk about it. She reposts some videos from known jihadists and almost immediately is contacted by a man who goes by the name Bilel (Shazad Latif). After a brief text conversation, he suggests they talk on Skype.
They talk for months. She tries to get him to give away secrets such as how she would get to Syria if she joined him. From the first, he treats her like a lover. He calls her Baby and talks about wanting to be with her. He shows her images from Syria and promises she’d be happy there with him. He talks about how beautiful their children would be.
While all this is happening, Amy isn’t making any money. Her boyfriend Matt (Morgan Watkins) is looking for a place where they can live together with their dog. (The dog is an important part of the plot.) Amy’s boss keeps threatening her with being fired if she doesn’t get something worth publishing soon.
The situation gets more and more complex and dangerous for Amy and the people she works with.
Amy was playing a dangerous game. She learned a lot about how terrorists recruit vulnerable women (and men) using online tools. We see it all from Amy’s laptop and watch as she responds to the multitude of things happening on her screen even as she attempts to Skype with Bilel. It was implied that she let the whole charade drag on for too long because she was actually falling for Bilel’s line.
The ending of the film was both scary and satisfying. With such a small cast you might think this was a COVID lockdown film, but it actually came out in 2018. I watched it on Peacock, but it’s available in several places.
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