In the espionage revenge drama, “The Amateur,” the brilliant, introverted and quiet, Charlie Heller (Oscar winner Rami Malek) seemingly has the perfect life. A CIA decoder working out of a basement office at headquarters in Langley, Heller is married to the gorgeous Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan, actually gorgeous), who seems to adore and understand his OCD and seemingly neurodivergent ways.
Checking in with a covert asset who sends him clandestine intel overseas, Charlie all of a sudden receives a dangerous communique payload that’s too hot to handle: an American airstrike in the Middle East that’s been surreptitiously covered up by CIA intelligence.
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Suddenly called into the offices of his superiors, one of them Director Moore (Holt McCallany, “Mindhunter”), the head of the Special Activities Center (SAC). But Charlie’s discovery hasn’t been detected. Instead, they regret to inform him that Sarah has been suddenly killed in a London terrorist attack.
Wracked with grief, after providing them the identities of all the attackers—the decoder furiously working overtime to uncover this plot and bring the men to justice—he soon realizes the agency is not going to go directly after them because of conflicting internal agendas; they want some bigger fish to fry out of this tragedy.
Desperate for vengeance and consumed with anger, Charlie soon blackmails his bosses with the cover-up info he’s accidentally uncovered of which they are directly responsible. He has no interest in extorting them really, he just wants to be trained so he can go after the killers of his wife himself.
If this sounds deeply far-fetched, well, at least Director Moore and his lieutenant are just as amused with this outlandish request, but after initially laughing it off they acquiesce to his demands, if only for now. Sent to a training facility, Charlie is mentored by Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) a grizzly retired colonel in the CIA tasked with training field agents.
While it turns out that Director Moore plans a double cross and has no intentions of sending Charlie overseas on a revenge mission, the analyst shows how canny and resourceful he is, five chess moves ahead, he’s already en route to Europe by the time a betrayal plot is sprung.
From there, it’s Jason Bourne-style actioner of brains, mistakes and wit over brawn. Charlie not much of a killer and f*cking up his assassination attempts due to his lack of cool and collected inner instincts, but eventually using his off-the-charts IQ, penchant for IED bomb making and predictive analysis intellect for forecasting outcomes, he proves to be a worthy and deadly adversary not to be underestimated.
Helmed by James Hawes (“Slow Horses,” “Snowpiercer”) with a script by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, “The Amateur” is certainly handsomely and competently directed, but the plot and story definitely borders on the preposterous and unbelievable. One tense scene where Charlie is trying to pick a lock in Paris using YouTube while assassins close in on the apartment is unintentionally hilarious, but luckily, these laughable moments are generally not overly common.
Co-starring Caitríona Balfe, Michael Stuhlbarg, Julianne Nicholson, Jon Bernthal, Adrian Martinez, and Danny Sapani, “The Amateur” has a strong supporting cast, and through grief and trauma-induced flashbacks, Rachel Brosnahan’s role isn’t as disposably cameo-ing as one might think.
Based on the novel by Robert Littell, “The Amateur” might feel a little silly in places, a 90lbs soaking wet computer nerd becoming a ‘Bourne’ style taking-matters-into-his-own-hands assassin using his brain and “MacGyver”-like resourcefulness. Yet, as unlikely much of it is, one’s suspension of disbelief isn’t as challenged as much as initially suspected thanks to the cast, the taut direction and crisp editing.
Malek is strange leading man to be sure, but his overall autistic odd-ballness fits well with the character’s on-the-spectrum neurominority.
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Spy dramas like “The Amateur” generally don’t exist on the big screen anymore and they’re generally refashioned into TV series. And we’re so conditioned to this dichotomy as an audience these days, we generally fall into the trap of feeding into the problem by saying reductive sh*t like, “why didn’t this just premiere on Hulu?” or something similarly cynical. And while not brilliant by any stretch, the engaging little film does prove its mettle on the big screen. Hell, even a late-game appearance by Fishburne suggests, who knows, maybe a sequel could be earned if the movie makes enough theatrical dollars. And at the very least, the skillful film generally doesn’t insult the audiences intelligence and generally is a lot smarter and sharper than most mainstream moves in cineplexes these days. [B]
“The Amateur,” opens in theaters nationwide on April 11, 2025, via 20th Century Studios.
