Profile: Timur Bekmambetov’s terrorist love story trailer debuts

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Ben-Hur) and Focus Features have debuted an intense trailer for the Russian filmmaker's next thriller titled Profile.

Using the Screenlife format popularized by films like Searching and Unfriended, Bekmambetov shot Profile back in 2018. The trailer, set to Phoebe Bridgers's "DVD Menu," follows an undercover British journalist in her quest to bait and expose a terrorist recruiter through social media while trying not to be sucked in by her recruiter and lured into becoming a militant extremist herself. The unconventional thriller plays out entirely on a computer screen, making it feel like Catfish for terrorists.

I've seen my share of unorthodoxx love stories on the silver screen, but damn. It takes a spine made of vibranium to pull a stunt like the one Valene Kane's Amy is attempting in this film, and I would not want to be in her hijab when Shazad Latif's Abu Biel Al-Britani discovers she's a journalist spy.

Profile premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2018, but now it's finally getting a U.S. release. I'm of the mind that this film looks incredibly gripping, and I can't wait to check it out. It's amazing what some filmmakers can accomplish using applications like FaceTime and Google Translate to establish tension and make it feel like these extraordinary circumstances can happen to anyone. I wish Amy luck with her escape. It looks like she'll need it.