âProfile,â based on a journalistâs undercover investigation of an Islamic State recruiter, is inventive, well-acted and one of the most tense movies of the year so far.
British investigative reporter Amy Whittaker (Valene Kane) is writing about the phenomenon of European women and girls being recruited to join Islamic State. She crafts a fake Facebook profile as âMelody Nelson,â a 19-year-old recent convert to Islam, and shares a jihadistâs video. With alarming suddenness, he makes contact with her. What follows is an increasingly taut game of deception with life-or-death stakes as the recruiter, Abu Bilel Al-Britani (Shazad Latif), insists on video chatting with her and digs into her background over dozens of daily conversations â and the lines between professional and personal blur.