Radcliffe perfectly cast in role of infiltrator

Imperium may be a little too tidy in parts but remains a highly effective drama

“Words build bridges into unexplored regions.”

It’s an inspiring quotation with which to open a film, but the sucker punch to the viewer comes a moment later, when the author is revealed: Adolf Hitler.

Just what kind of movie is this?

Turns out it’s a highly effective thriller in which a mild-mannered FBI agent must infiltrate a white supremacist group to prevent a domestic terrorist attack.

Daniel Radcliffe plays Agent Nate Foster, adding another notch to a career that in recent months has greatly expanded to include tech genius (Now You See Me 2), Igor (Victor Frankenstein) and dead guy (Swiss Army Man).

We first meet Nate in an interrogation room, where his empathy and knowledge of Arabic helps him draw out a suspect in a thwarted terror plot.

(It also raises issues of when encouragement slides into abetment and then entrapment, a theme the film will revisit before it’s done.)

Nate’s people skills also attract the notice of Agent Angela Zamparo (Toni Collette), who wants him to get close to a white-power radio host who seems to know a bit too much about a recent theft of radioactive material.

The film was co-written by director Daniel Ragussis with Michael German, a retired FBI agent whose experiences informed the script.

But the restrictions of moviemaking mean that Nate’s infiltration and rise through the ranks of the white supremacists happens a little too quickly and easily to be believable.

And for someone who admits he’s way out of his depth, the guy is cucumber-cool under pressure.

Even so, Imperium is a wellplotted piece of fiction with an ideal choice for villain; white supremacists are more immediate and less campy (when played as recognizably human, as by Tracy Letts, Chris Sullivan, Sam Trammell and others in this film), than the old standby of North Koreans.

There are a few drawbacks, such as an overly ominous score and a somewhat too-tidy final act, but they’re more than compensated for by Radcliffe’s performance.

Watching Radcliffe’s character think his way out of tight corners — preventing an attack on an interracial couple without blowing his cover, for instance — is worth the price of admission to the movie.