Veteran director Michael Apted has put together an entertaining espionage action-thriller, on the time-honoured theme of the agent going rogue because the bosses are complicit in the dirty dealing; Apted is working with a script from feature newcomer Peter O’Brien. It doesn’t break much in the way of new ground, but that isn’t exactly the point – it rattles along and Apted tackles it with gusto. It’s also satisfying to see Toni Collette let rip with a machine gun.
Noomi Rapace plays Alice, a CIA agent undercover in London; Michael Douglas is her handler; John Malkovich is the hawkish spy chief at Langley; and Collette is his testy opposite number at MI5. Alice is curtly called in to interrogate a jihadi intermediary suspected of being about to give the “go” instruction on a bio-warfare attack somewhere in the US. She’s about to break him – when something strange happens.
Like so many thrillers of this sort, the movie blandly assumes that Middle Eastern terrorists aren’t smart enough to fool US authorities: it takes American converts and American spies. But this covert cliche aside, Unlocked is an entertaining genre thriller, punched home with vigour and attack.
