What’s It About
After his life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a brilliant but introverted CIA decoder takes matters into his own hands when his supervisors refuse to take action.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
The Amateur heralds the arrival of a new franchise between James Bond and Jason Bourne, with tech-savvy style inspired by Mission Impossible computer hackers. Rami Malek enters the mix with confidence, delivering a performance of a standout kind in this smart, fun thriller that will have you on the edge from start to finish. What makes the film so compelling is the terrific supporting cast to Malek—especially Lawrence Fishburne, who finally receives a role with real depth and meaning after all those pointless appearances in lesser films. Fishburne brings gravity and feeling to his role and delivers memorable moments every time he is on screen. The premise is gripping from the very beginning: Malek is a CIA surveillance expert whose world is shattered when his wife becomes the victim of a gruesome terrorist attack. Filled with rage and sorrow, he is faced with the torturous realization that his own government is unwilling to pursue the attackers with the haste and ferocity he believes they should be pursued. This betrayal pushes him over the edge, and he goes rogue against the very organization he used to work for. Unlike most action heroes, though, Malek’s character does not inexplicably transform into a martial arts expert or weapons specialist. Instead, he employs what he actually knows—technology, surveillance, and spying—to plan his revenge in the background. Director James Hawes, making only his second feature after a successful TV career, demonstrates a sure touch in balancing the emotional stress of bereavement with the technical thrill of spying. The film is particularly effective in scenes where Fishburne’s character attempts to reason with Malek’s progressively deranged tech mastermind, ratcheting tension through dialogue more than just gratuitous set pieces. Their showdown is one of the movie’s best things, with Fishburne futilely trying to slap some sense into Malek’s furious computer geek before he takes actions that can’t be reversed. What truly sets The Amateur apart is how it tackles the increasingly retrograde tech-revenge genre—a storytelling approach that’s become increasingly hard to pull off credibly in our current age of mass surveillance and digital breadcrumbs. The film acknowledges these modern complexities even as it looks for new ways for its hero to operate in the shadows. Although the situation occasionally stretches plausibility, I was completely absorbed in this grieving widower’s crusade as he consistently shows himself capable of staying one step ahead of friends and enemies alike, even as he’s clearly struggling with the moral implications of taking the law into his own hands. Malek gives one of the best performances in recent memory, playing directly to his strengths as a performer who has built a career on intense, slightly socially awkward characters with inner lives. His own work is vulnerability coupled with grit that makes his evolution from desk jockey analyst to vengeance-seeking vigilante pleasantly plausible. His eyes are piercing, and he gets to mess around with a lot of inner turmoil, and there are great moments of emotion to be harvested in amidst the high-tech spy protocol. All that said, however, the film is not without critical issues. The excellent supporting cast, with the likes of Jon Bernthal, are frustratingly left under-employed. There are a number of characters that are introduced with so much potential to never be seen again and without resolution or any kind of effect on the plot. These random entrances and exits give the story a sense of disjointedness, and you can’t help but question whether subplots were simply cut out or if these interruptions are actually supposed to be something to represent the mental illness of the protagonist. The film is technically proficient with slick cinematography and tensely effective action sequences, but it never quite achieves the level of cleverness or resonance that it clearly aspires to. By act three, the pacing is off, rushing through potentially big character moments and lingering on lesser scenes. This creates some murky motivations and underdeveloped relationships. As the story wound down, I couldn’t help but speculate that all that was happening might actually be happening in the traumatized psyche of the lead character—perhaps as an elaborate coping mechanism for his gruesome loss. The closing scenes intentionally leave many of the narrative threads dangling and questions unanswered in a way that can support this reading. If such ambiguity was intentional, the movie needed to either commit more to these hints or incorporate more obvious suggestions about the possibly untrustworthy perception of the protagonist. Conversely, if audiences are meant to take events at face value, then a plethora of gaping plot holes and character inconsistencies are far harder to pardon. In a year of film that has otherwise been plagued by a lack of fun blockbusters, The Amateur is a genuinely entertaining crowd-pleaser that should fare well both in theaters and later on streaming platforms. Audiences hungry for intelligent action thrillers will have much to feed themselves with here, particularly in Malek’s committed performance and the movie’s refreshing focus on tech over brawn as the lead’s go-to tool. The Amateur balances its bleaker aspects of sadness and retaliation with sufficient measures of tension-suspension comedy and satisfying “gotcha” plot twists to maintain an overall entertaining tone. The action scenes, though unoriginal, are shot with sense and purpose in place of dizzying cutting and excessive special effects. This more realistic take on the thriller genre assists in selling the transformation of the protagonist from regular analyst to unlikely operative. With tighter pacing throughout and a more satisfying, logical resolution, this promising film could have become something special that would be discussed for years. As it stands, The Amateur offers an entertaining, thought-provoking ride that doesn’t quite stick the landing but certainly establishes an interesting foundation for a franchise, if the studio wants to turn it into the series that it clearly aspires to be. For fans of intelligent spy thrillers with a technological edge, it’s a refreshing departure from typical action fodder, even if it ultimately leaves you wondering what might have been with a bit more script polishing.
OUR RATING – AN ENTHUSIASTIC 7