Terror comes to life in British thriller

Much as “24” has its roots in 9/11, 7/7 -- the day in 2005 that Islamic extremist suicide bombers hit the London transit system -- provides the deep background to “Britz,” a two-part film by Peter Kosminsky (“White Oleander”) about identity, prejudice and anti-terrorism in the land of the Magna Carta. Airing Sunday and Monday on BBC America, it is more thoughtful than your usual American terrorism thriller, though the thinking is not always easy to follow. A series of fact-filled title cards at the end make it clear that writer-director Kosminsky believes that the suspension of civil liberties in the name of security, as well as the country’s involvement in the Iraq war, makes Britain a more, not less, dangerous place. But at the same time, he seems to admit that the secret and often questionable tactics of the authorities may keep bombs from going off.

Perhaps that’s why he’s split his tale into two interlocking episodes, following the mostly separate paths of two British-born siblings of Pakistani heritage. Sohail (Riz Ahmed), whose story airs Sunday, is studying for the bar. His friends are mostly white, he’s uninterested in religion, and he identifies himself first and foremost as British and goes to work in London for MI5, the British intelligence agency. Monday follows his younger sister, Nasima (Manjinder Virk), still living at home in Bradford (near Leeds, where the bombs used in the 7/7 attacks were manufactured). She’s a medical student and leafleting activist protesting the new British police state, its abuses of power at home and its participation in the Iraq war; her boyfriend, whom she hides from her family, is black, and not a Muslim. She’s modern in all respects. Then the suicide of a friend sets her off on a more radical (though not, notably, Islamist) path. Brother and sister each lose a part of themselves, become dulled to the consequences of their actions. And both their paths lead to a park at Canary Wharf.

The film is a mixed bag, much better in its small details and more or less ordinary human encounters than it is in its overall arc, which is propped up by some not entirely credible plot points and transformations of character. To say even a little about what happens would perhaps be to say too much, but generally speaking, Kosminsky is better here with moments than with motivations and better at creating scenes than at building them into a story. (Some characters just wander right out of the film.) The whole is something less than the sum of its parts.

But the parts are pretty good -- from minute to minute, as an experience of people and place, the film has much to offer. Virk and Ahmed are excellent and surrounded by a large supporting cast. Full of thriller-style intrigue and suspense, played at a resolutely slow pace, “Britz” is handsomely made with that easy naturalism common to British productions. Whether portraying Muslim neighborhoods in northern England, a terrorist training camp in Pakistan or the humming spy headquarters, Kosminsky gets life into his frame, into the street scenes and the sex scenes, the coffee drinking and the bomb building. If anything, it’s that surrounding portrait of the everyday that wins out -- that reminds us that even as the world goes mad, people manage to live in it.

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robert.lloyd@latimes.com

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‘Britz’

Where: BBC America

When: 5 p.m. Sunday, Monday

Rating: TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 with an advisory for violence)