The Amateur (2025)

​“The Amateur” stars Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitríona Balfe, Jon Bernthal, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Laurence Fishburne.  Released on April 11, 2025, the film has a cryptographer blackmailing the CIA into letting him avenge his wife.

The film was directed by James Hawes, who also directed “One Life” and several episodes of television shows like “The Chatterley Affair”, “The 39 Steps”, and “Enid”.  It is based on the 1981 novel by Robert Littell.  Many people have roles to play in the Central Intelligence Agency to ensure the safety of civilians worldwide.  While some are trained to confront threats on the field, others, like cryptographers, stay in the facility to provide tech and knowledge involving their targets to help the CIA efficiently accomplish their tasks.  The latter may seem less crucial compared to the field operatives they hired, but when the right opportunity comes, they tend to exceed even the lowest of expectations.  This defines the latest spy thriller showcasing the crypto nerd’s quest to defy his lesser-known role in the agency for vengeance.  There is a reason specific roles shouldn’t be underestimated, CIA or otherwise.  Does it offer enough thrills in its plot and quality to operate in the cinematic field?  Let’s find out.

The story centers on Charles Heller (Malek), a cryptographer working with the CIA’s Decryption and Analysis division.  His everyday life begins to spin out of control when his wife, Sarah (Brosnahan), is caught in a crossfire during a terrorist attack in London, resulting in her death.  A heartbroken Charles hopes for the CIA to catch the people responsible for his wife’s death but discovers that his bosses won’t act due to their conflicting internal priorities.  Charles then takes matters into his own hands by blackmailing the agency to make him a field operative despite his inexperience with killing.  Utilizing his expertise as a cryptographer, Charles embarks on a global quest to avenge his wife and hunt down the killers while the CIA seeks to eliminate him.

This review was obviously long overdue for several reasons.  One of them was the other movies that played last weekend, “Drop” and “Warfare”, which captured my interest way more than “The Amateur”.  Even though I appreciate the spy genre, my interest in some of them has been on and off due to their seemingly slow-burn approaches, with “The Amateur” being no exception despite its main leads.  I guess the same reason could be applied to “Black Bag”, another spy thriller that came out last month.  Hopefully, I’ll get to that film eventually.  The other reason was my schedule being booked for my vacation last weekend, so I wasn’t able to check it out sooner.  Thankfully, since I didn’t have much going on besides my Easter preparation and there weren’t many movies that interested me, I managed to find the time to see it before I lost interest.  So, for those waiting to hear my perspective on this vigilante thriller, I hope you will find this helpful, and I appreciate your patience.

As mentioned earlier, “The Amateur” is another spy film that focuses more on its slow-burn dialogue-driven thrills than the usual fast-paced action set pieces.  While there are a few action scenes that kept its juices flowing, the movie emphasized the excitement of people outsmarting their villains through dialogue and wits.  Fortunately, despite some mildly slow scenes, I was relieved that the film had some merits in its spy-themed dialogue to keep my attention.  As for the story itself, that could be why I was fixated on its dialogue-driven plot, but not in the way some may expect.  “The Amateur” would likely satisfy those needing a straightforward spy thriller without the big-budget blockbuster effects and farfetched action set pieces overwhelming its tone.  However, that also served as its downfall, as it offered nothing else in its narrative and flawed stakes to elevate its formulaic yet mildly watchable revenge story.

Regarding the screenplay by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, “The Amateur” is another by-the-numbers revenge thriller that calculates the same motions as other vigilante movies with a similar premise.  There weren’t any huge surprises and complex twists that put the story at a 180, nor did it provide a sense of identity to revitalize the genre in multiple ways.  It’s just a standard yet suitably-made portrayal of a global quest for revenge by none other than a seemingly ordinary tech nerd.  Charlie is seen as another “normal” person who actually possesses a particular set of skills, which, in this case, is decrypting and analyzing classified intel, similar to other action heroes like Liam Neeson in “Taken” and even Jason Statham.  However, what distinguishes Charlie from those conventional action heroes is that Charlie is his inability to engage in combat or harm others, even when in possession of a firearm.  As a result, he employs his intellect and cryptographic expertise to accomplish this task.  This narrative approach illustrated the perils of searching for criminals without formal training and highlighted the satisfaction derived from others' underestimation of the protagonist's capabilities.  However, when it comes to the movie's execution, this approach wasn’t quite skilled enough to make the risky global adventure fun or emotionally intense, mainly when centering on Charlie’s grief over losing his wife.

Director James Hawes possessed the basics for a competent spy thriller filled with dialogue-driven sequences and action.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t blend them all to manifest its muted narrative's thrills and sentimentality.  But I will give him this: Hawes had the expertise to deliver a nicely crafted thriller for most of the runtime.  Accompanied by Martin Ruhe’s cinematography, Hawes compensated for the lack of style by including numerous well-shot sequences that depict international sceneries and drama on a somberly immersive scale.  I will also admit that he did a respectable job making the movie’s violence entertaining, although there were a few scenes where the editing could’ve been less choppy.  Its two-hour-plus runtime was a bit overlong for a premise like this, especially with its hit-and-miss pacing.  Thankfully, with Hawes behind the camera, the film had a filmmaking craft and intrigue worthy of my attention span, even with its predictable outcome.

Rami Malek takes the helm of an unconventional action hero whose computer skills compensate for his lack of experience on the field.  Of course, this wasn’t the first time he played a character with computer expertise, as he previously played one in the critically acclaimed thriller series, “Mr. Robot”.  While I haven’t watched the series, hearing about it is enough to consider that this role may have been made with him in mind.  I didn't view Charlie as a conventional, charming action hero characterized by cliched one-liners.  Instead, he’s more along the lines of a vulnerable, timid, and mourning individual, determined to fulfill the responsibilities the agency failed to address while grappling with the memories of his deceased wife.  Malek was tasked with conveying this subtle personality while filling in the shoes of other action heroes, and the result was pretty good.  It’s no game-changer, but his ability to decrypt his character inside and out marked another solid feat in Malek’s acting career, which is enough to elevate the film’s minor heartbeat.  Rachel Brosnahan also provided a suitable performance as Sarah Heller despite her minor role.  As for Laurence Fishburne, his take on Charlie’s mentor, Robert Henderson, will likely entertain his fans with his commanding yet subtly charismatic performance.  Considering I’ve been enjoying Fishburne in his other roles, seeing him do what he does best is satisfactory enough for me.

Overall, “The Amateur” has some skills to make this global spy thriller watchable but lacks much else in its expertise to bypass its formulaic coding.  On the one hand, the film has enough moments in its dialogue-driven scenes and violence to impress audiences looking for a straightforward, mid-budget spy thriller.  On the other hand, that’s all it provided regarding its predictable narrative, resulting in a less-than-stellar thriller whose presentation often compensates for its lack of clever storytelling tricks.  Rami Malek works as a convincing, underestimated spy hero regarding his performance, and James Hawes makes a suitable effort to inject some life into his somberly contained direction.  However, its average screenplay, formulaic plot elements, low-level stakes, and mildly bloated runtime overshadowed the film’s worth of being in the field with other spy thrillers of years past.  It’s worth watching if you’re into the spy genre, but I recommend you wait until it’s available on streaming.  Otherwise, you might be better off with a more capable cinematic agent standing by your side.

C