The Amateur looked good in the trailer, and I was going in hopeful. You have Rami Malek, Jon Bernthal and Laurence Fishburne, what wasn’t to look forward too?
The movie stars Malek, Bernthal, Fishburne, Rachel Brosnahan, Evan Milton, Nick Mills, Tiffany Grey, and Holt McCallany. James Hawes directs with Robert Littell, Ken Nolan, and Gary Spinelli writing.
The Story
The Amateur is a revenge story:
When his supervisors at the CIA refuse to take action after his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a decoder takes matters into his own hands.
Heller (Malek) is an office agent, if that’s a thing. He spends his time writing encryption codes for firewalls, information analysis, and stock inventory for pens and other stationery. Think the opposite of James Bond; while James is out there, sleeping with women, jumping motorbikes off cliffs, and shooting more henchmen than the bad guys can hire. Heller is the one who files the expense report for James’s last mission.
His wife leaves for a business trip in London and ends up getting killed by terrorists. He then finds out who the terrorists are and plans to kill them. I’ll not go through the rest of the story, but it’s pretty predictable, apart from the ending, which cops out a bit.
The Cast
Malek is a very underrated actor. I really like him in pretty much everything he’s been in. Here, he’s just as good and gives 110%, but he’s limited by a script. As I said, the story for The Amateur is a paint-by-numbers affair, and I felt it held Malek back.
I would like to see him go postal, like Cage in Mandy, but because he’s an ‘amateur’, he’s nervous, shy and out of his depth. This means Malek is the same; he plays it well, but just held back.
The Amateur also stars Fishburne and Bernthal. Both of which are in about two scenes each, and again, wasted here. Fishburne has more to do as a ‘trainer’ for Heller, but again, he’s very limited.
Bernthal is there to have his name in the credits and a paycheque.
The Script
The main issue with The Amateur is how limp the script is. The idea is good, but it just misses most of the point. In the trailer, there’s a scene where Heller kills someone in a swimming pool.
It’s suspended between two buildings, and one of the bad guys likes to night swim in it. James Bond would plant a couple of explosives at each end and watch the fireworks. Heller manages to expand the air gap in between the fixes in the pool, or something or other, and wreck the pool.
How does he do this? Don’t know, he just does. Don’t ask questions, just enjoy the sceptical. Not having an explanation, though, takes you out of the movie.
There are other issues. As an amateur, he’s able to avoid capture from his own guys and the terrorists. He can travel the world, undetected and build bombs.
I’m not going to spoil the end, but it shows how Heller is a much better person than the bad guys. It’s pretty weak and disappointing. The bad guy gets taken down, but not in the way you are hoping.
Overall
The Amateur is another one of those ‘good idea on paper, but badly executed’. It’s very predictable, the cast are all doing their best with the script, but all held back.
There’s nothing new, nothing original and very little tension, to be honest. The first act sets everything up nicely, the second act is laughable, and the third act is just a letdown. Yes, it ends, but not in a satisfying way.
I’m giving The Amateur 1 out of 5 stars; it passed 2 hours, but I won’t be watching it again. It’s not on VoD.
