Almost every middle-aged actor worth their salt must have been thrilled when Liam Neeson’s Taken turned the veteran star into cinema’s new favorite grizzled badass, because it suddenly became the in thing to have any well-known name over 50 try their hand at headlining a hard-hitting shoot ’em up. Even Sean Bean got in on the act with 2012’s Cleanskin, even if the results were solid as opposed to spectacular.
Writer, director, and producer Hadi Hajaig’s wasn’t panned by critics or audiences, but respective critical and user scores on Rotten Tomatoes of 53 and 65 percent underline that it wasn’t exactly blowing people away, either. 10 years on, though, and the tale of counter-terrorism and governmental subterfuge has become the latest overlooked actioner to find a new lease of life on Netflix.
During an undercover operation, Bean’s Secret Service agent is one of the few people left alive when the mission goes disastrously wrong, leaving terrorists to escape with a briefcase full of explosives. Determined to make amends, he’s tasked by his superiors to retrieve the package and eliminate all members of the terror cell, before they can cause untold chaos and destruction.
As per FlixPatrol, Cleanskin isn’t just a proud and freshly-minted member of the platform’s global most-watched rankings, it’s also the sixth-top title in Australia, and it’s flying even higher in New Zealand having secured third position. Not bad at all, even though we wonder how many people have checked it out to see whether or not Bean manages to survive to the end credits for a change.
