Unlocked (film)

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Movie
German title Unlocked
Original title Unlocked
Country of production United States , United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 2017
length 102 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Michael Apted
script Peter O'Brien
production Lorenzo di Bonaventura ,
Georgina Townsley ,
Erik Howsam ,
Claudia Bluemhuber
music Stephen Barton
camera George Richmond
cut Andrew MacRitchie
occupation
synchronization

Unlocked is a 2017 British-American thriller film directed by Michael Apted and written by Peter O'Brien . The main characters are played by Noomi Rapace , Orlando Bloom , Michael Douglas , John Malkovich and Toni Collette .

action

After an operation in Paris failed under her supervision, CIA interrogation specialist Alice Racine now works undercover in a community center in London. The district is a well-known place for Islamic extremism . Any information she gets at the center is passed on to security services, including MI5 intelligence chief Emily Knowles. Her former supervisor and mentor, Eric Lasch, explains that she shouldn't feel guilty for the failed operation that resulted in 24 people being killed by Algerian suicide bombers and that she needs to return to active action. Meanwhile, the CIA and MI5 receive information that radical preacher Imam Yazid Khaleel is planning a biological attack on a US target on British soil, in collaboration with US-born Islamist and terrorist David Mercer . Racine is approached by Frank Sutter, an officer at the London branch of the CIA, who gives her orders from CIA European chief Bob Hunter to interrogate a captured Khaleels courier.

At a hotel, Racine begins interrogating the courier, a British-Moroccan man named Lateef. She can get the message from him confirming the attack to deliver to the Mercer representative. However, before giving the details of the message to Sutter, she receives a call from her supervisor Ed Romley, who confusingly gives her the same assignment as Sutter before. She realizes she has been tricked and the men she works with are not from the CIA. She tries to escape with Lateef, but he is killed in the subsequent shooting. She retires to Lasch's apartment, which is soon attacked by the agents, and Lasch is shot. She fled to a safe house that he had informed her about beforehand. There she catches the burglar Jack Alcott, who is about to rob the apartment. She holds him in the bedroom and contacts Hunter and Romley. Although they claim to believe her, they are sending armed police officers to arrest her. After she was fashered , Alcott rescues her and the two of them flee. Racine learns that he is a retired British marine who served in the Iraq war . She reluctantly allows him to go with her. She also seeks help from Amjad, a friend and customer from the community center who drives a taxi.

She and Alcott meet Khaleel in a restaurant. He tells them that the courier message is a cancel warrant because he no longer believes in the radical extremism he has promoted. But he expects Mercer to continue the attack. Racine discovers that Alcott is working for Sutter and the two fight each other. Alcott is killed by a stranger who was drawn into the argument. Racine turns to Knowles, who starts an operation in which Amjad, as a courier, meets the Mercer representative. She reveals Racine information from the French secret service DGSI that CIA officials allowed the attack in Paris because one of the victims was a whistleblower from the ranks of the CIA. Meanwhile, Romley's team is tracking down the bullets used in the killing of her men who were supposed to bring Lateef to the CIA. They come from an AT308C sniper rifle that was stolen from a Metropolitan Police armory by the corrupt MI5 agent John Wilson. It is found that Wilson is part of Knowles' team deployed to back up. Wilson incapacitates his colleagues and shoots Knowles, who appears to be dead but was protected by a bulletproof vest . Amjad is shot by Mercer's representative after delivering the message. When Racine tries to help him, Amjad is hit again from a distance by Wilson. When Wilson also wants to kill Racine, Knowles prevents him from doing so.

After surviving the attack, Racine goes to a meeting point organized by Sutter, where it turns out that Lasch not only faked his death, but is also the main conspirator. He admits that he is also responsible for the Paris attack. She tries unsuccessfully to work out what the next planned attack is and deliberately lets him escape in order to be able to follow it. At the same time, the planned assassin Mercer explains by phone that he has doubts and that he could not carry out the attack. Since the CIA conspirators knew that Khaleel wanted to prevent the attack, Wilson is there, kills the dubious assassin and prepares the planned biological attack himself.

Lasch drives to a warehouse outside Wembley Stadium, where a sold-out American football game between Portland and Oklahoma is being played, and meets Wilson, who gives him the remote detonator and leaves. When Racine surprises Lasch and threatens him with a weapon, he explains his years of methods and motivations to her: The Americans who attend the game are supposed to spread the virus in the USA in order to wake up the US government and to force the threat from biological Taking terrorism seriously and restricting freedoms. When Wilson returns, Racine shoots him in the ensuing gunfight. She leads a short fight with Lasch, in which he falls to his death. Racine stops the countdown for the virus bomb.

Knowing that in the face of the failed attack, Mercer will attempt to flee to Syria, Hunter orders her to intercept him along the way. In Prague, Mercer is about to meet a contact who will take him on the next stage of his journey. But Racine cuts his femoral artery and kills him. Hunter meets with Racine and greets her back on active duty.

publication

The film was released by Lionsgate in the UK on May 5, 2017 . ZDF broadcast the film on September 23, 2019 under the title Die Spezialistin .

criticism

The Teleschau media service praised the "high-tension bioweapons thriller" and welcomed the implementation of the script:

“The story of the espionage thriller 'The Specialist' by Peter O'Brien was almost forgotten: in 2008 it was on the Hollywood 'Black List' of the 'best unfilmed' scripts. It was not until nine years later that director Michael Apted [...] dared to make the film and gathered a top-class cast around him. "

- Sarah Kohlberger, teleschau - the media service

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release Certificate for 169466 / V . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. "The specialist": Who is a friend and who is an enemy? In: prisma.de. Retrieved June 26, 2020 .