Profile is a 2018 (released in the United States in 2021) suspense film starring Valene Kane, Shazad Latif, Christine Adams, Amir Rahimzadeh and Morgan Watkins, and directed by Timur Bekmambetov. The film, loosely based on true story, follows a female British reporter who poses as a recent convert to Islam to catfish an ISIL/Daesh fighter for a story. As expected, things soon spiral out of her control.
Profile contains the following tropes:
- Bilingual Bonus: Towards the end, Billel speaks in Arabic to the man who will supposedly bring Amy/Melody across the Turkish/Syrian border. He's actually negotiating her selling price with a sex trafficker who compliments him on his skill in luring innocent women. Viewers who don't speak Arabic won't know this until Lou helpfully translates the call for Amy later.
- Bland-Name Product: Averted. Chrome, Facebook, Skype and Screenflow are all prominently featured. While it is never explicitly mentioned that Amy is using an Apple Macintosh, her computer is not referred to by any other name and it works just like a Mac would.
- Decoy Antagonist: Amy initially panics over Lou, who is Syrian, being her IT assistant on the project. Nothing comes of it, as Lou is always honest and helpful towards her, even using his knowledge of Arabic to reveal Billel's true intentions at a critical juncture.
- Face–Heel Turn: Upon finding out that her boyfriend Matt and best friend Kathy, each feeling ignored by her in her single-minded pursuit of Billel, have apparently hooked up, Amy seriously considers joining Billel in Syria for real. Billel's temper and dishonesty about her travel plans, coupled with Lou's critical translation of Billel's conversation with "Melody's" Syrian handler, are enough to disabuse her of this notion
- Foreshadowing: There are several clues Billel is not being honest:
- The biggest example is when he shows Amy a house that would qualify as a palace in almost any culture, but repeatedly apologizes for its smallness and modesty.
- Billel frequently calls her from an "Internet Cafe" that looks a lot like a call center with the words "Internet Cafe" plastered on the wall. Significantly, we never see anyone there except Billel and his ISIL counterparts.
- Billel talks about how wonderful Syria is, yet except for the opulent house mentioned above and the "Internet Cafe," we never see anything but war zones and dilapidated hovels.
- Billel promises to treat Amy/Melody "like a queen," but sharply questions her about her computer desktop and every notification sound that he hears. His controlling nature continually asserts itself.
- Billel's videoed "funeral" several days after being his supposed death in a rocket attack. The video shows a number of Billel's ISIL comrades standing around his "corpse," which suddenly springs to life in a Jump Scare. However, Islamic law (which ISIL claims to follow strictly) mandates that any corpse be buried by the next sundown at the latestnote . No way would they keep a corpse lying on the floor for days on end, and viewers knowledgeable about Islam will know Billel is not actually dead.
- Amy reading an article about women being lured to join ISIL and then forced into sex slavery foreshadows what Billel intends for her.
- Human Traffickers: Who Billel is actually sending Amy to meet when he directs her to her handler.
- Hypocrite: Billel insists he loves Amy because she's a strong woman, but gets angry at her if he even suspects she's doing something outside of what he thinks she should be doing.
- Karma Houdini: By the end of the film, Billel suffers no real harm (beyond a wounded ego) for his crimes.
- Manipulative Bastard: Billel's fake "funeral" is presented as a joke/declaration of love (i.e. "I might as well be dead without you"), but is really just manipulation on Billel's part. It works.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: By the end of the film, Amy has exposed a major sex-trafficking ring and probably saved numerous women from a grisly fate. For this, she is thoroughly doxxed, has a death sentence placed on her by ISIL/Daesh, and is forced to change her name and go into hiding.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Amy treats her editor Vick as an antagonist, but Vick is merely trying to ensure she has a publishable story after advancing Amy a bunch of cash. Vick also sees Amy going deeper and deeper into her character and becoming unable to separate her true self from the persona she's created.
- Sex Slave: Amy reads an article about Islamic State recruiters luring women to come and join Daesh before forcing them into sex slavery, a fate which almost befalls her.
- Swapped Roles: At the start of the film, Amy is catfishing Billel. By the end, he's catfishing her.
- Unreliable Expositor: Much of Billel's exposition about Syria is shown to be lies he's using to lure "Melody" into joining Islamic State.
- Wham Line: When Amy translates the first line of Billel's conversation with her handler to reveal they're talking about selling her into sex slavery.
