Movie Review: ‘The Amateur’

A great if underused cast led by Rami Malek bolsters ‘The Amateur,’ but this low-key adult spy thriller never quite builds up enough of a head of steam.

Rami Malek as Heller in 20th Century Studios' 'The Amateur'. Photo by John Wilson. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

‘The Amateur’ receives 6 out of 10 stars.

Opening in theaters April 11 is ‘The Amateur,’ directed by James Hawes and starring Rami Malek, Laurence Fishburne, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitriona Balfe, Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, Michael Stuhlbarg, Danny Sapani, and Jon Bernthal.

Initial Thoughts

It’s something that a lot of moviegoers of a certain age all say they want: an adult, intelligent, dramatic thriller, perhaps based on a novel but not adapted from already heavily exploited IP, comic books, toys, or video games. For a little while, ‘The Amateur’ seems to check that box. Based on a novel by Robert Littell (which was filmed previously in 1981 as a Canadian production starring John Savage), directed by James Hawes (who’s got episodes of ‘Doctor Who,’ ‘Black Mirror,’ ‘Snowpiercer,’ and ‘Slow Horses’ under his belt), and featuring an admirable cast of seasoned, reliable actors, ‘The Amateur’ seems almost like a throwback to a different era of filmmaking.

In the end, however, it doesn’t quite live up to its potential. With a largely TV background, Hawes directs the film in almost leisurely, episodic fashion, giving it a stop-and-start pace that never really builds in tension. And too many of the characters – including the lead – are either underused or underdeveloped, leaving the feeling that there’s a longer film – or perhaps, yes, a TV show – somewhere on the cutting room floor.

Story and Direction

(L to R) Rami Malek as Heller and Holt McCallany as Moore in 20th Century Studios' 'The Amateur'. Photo by Jonathan Olley. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Rami Malek plays Charlie Heller, an extremely introverted CIA cryptographer whose wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) has to fly off to London for some kind of conference (we don’t really know what she does). But it’s only a couple of days before Charlie is pulled into the office of Deputy CIA Director Moore (Holt McCallany) and informed that Sarah has been killed in a brutal terrorist attack.

A stunned Charlie wants the CIA to retaliate, but when Moore and another superior, Caleb (Danny Sapani), drag their feet, Charlie does some digging – that’s his job – and discovers that Moore has been running a number of unauthorized black ops, some of them against our own allies and involving members of the same terrorist group. So he extorts Moore and Caleb instead: he’ll reveal everything about their operations to the public and the press – unless they give him enough training to go hunt down his wife’s murderers himself.

Forcing their hand for the moment (“What else do you want?” asks a disbelieving Moore. “An Aston-Martin? A jet-pack?”), Charlie comes under the tutelage of master assassin Henderson (Laurence Fishburne). He quickly learns that he can’t shoot worth s**t, but he can build a mean explosive and hack his way into any surveillance or computer system, both of which come in handy when he escapes and heads for Europe after getting wind that Moore plans to have Henderson kill him.

(L to R) Rami Malek and Caitríona Balfe in 'The Amateur'. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Once overseas, Charlie begins tracking down the people responsible for his wife’s murder, tormenting them in cleverly sadistic ways: in Paris, the sole woman in the group (Barbara Probst) is locked in an isolation booth at an allergy clinic and choked on pumped-in pollen, before she and Charlie engage in a vicious fight that doesn’t end well; later in Madrid, one of the terrorists meets a watery end when Charlie blows up the high-rise glass swimming pool he’s in (which you’ve seen in the trailer about 400 times by now). But as the CIA closes in, Charlie asks for help from “Inquiline” (Caitriona Balfe), an informant he’s been speaking with for years who helps point him in the direction of mastermind Horst Schiller (Michael Stuhlbarg).

James Hawes directs all this in an almost casual fashion, with the occasional shocking bursts of violence (many played in enclosed spaces) frequently followed up by dialogue scenes that dial the energy back down. “How will you fill the silence?” Inquiline asks Charlie at one point, after revealing that she lost a loved one and missed all his sounds around their home. Charlie’s response is to fill it with noise, screams, explosions, and drinks – a sly nod, perhaps, to the much more haunted James Bond of Ian Fleming’s novels than the film franchise. In a way, ‘The Amateur’ is an anti-Bond film: none of this is glamorous, jet-setting or particularly exotic, and Charlie increasingly loses more of his humanity as he pursues his goal.

Unfortunately, these interesting ideas aren’t given more than lip service. ‘The Amateur’ never delves too deeply below the surface, and its 10 screenwriters (only two are credited) fall back on only superficial and predictable thriller tropes. The villain even rolls out a version of the old “we’re not that different” chestnut toward the film’s end, an indication that despite an attempt at a more thoughtful approach, ‘The Amateur’ is slickly professional and nothing more.

Cast and Performances

(L to R) Rami Malek as Heller and Rachel Brosnahan as Sarah in 20th Century Studio's 'The Amateur'. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

The cast here is great on paper, but despite working hard a lot of them end up shortchanged. Malek is front and center for most of the two hours, but while this Oscar-winning actor has charisma and presence, his retiring performance as Charlie Heller is both nuanced and self-defeating. We want to believe Charlie’s turn from reserved, intensely non-verbal analyst to cold-blooded killer, but the lack of a fully defined character and even some background (does Charlie have parents? Does his dead wife? Is he possibly on the spectrum?) doesn’t put enough texture on Charlie’s character to make him fully come alive.

Laurence Fishburne as Henderson in 20th Century Studios' 'The Amateur'. Photo by Jonathan Olley. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

The same could be said of much of the rest of the ensemble. Laurence Fishburne probably comes off best and gives us the sense of a more complex soul underneath his tough exterior, but he only shows up sporadically. Rachel Brosnahan’s presence as Charlie’s wife is as ghostly as the flashbacks she’s in. Holt McCallany (so good in ‘The Iron Claw’) might as well have a big ‘VILLAIN’ sign stamped across his forehead, while Michael Stuhlbarg goes for the restrained, cultured heavy in his five or so minutes on screen. But the shortest end of the stick is handed to Jon Bernthal as a CIA spook who turns up in exactly two scenes, neither of which have any real point to them at all. We have to believe a lot of his material got the chop – why would you hire Jon Bernthal and give him nothing to do?

Final Thoughts

Rami Malek in 'The Amateur'. Photo: 20th Century Studios.

Its initially restrained pacing and low-key atmosphere had us on board with ‘The Amateur’ at first, but Malek’s performance and the film itself never quite catch fire. Too many red herrings – like the completely bizarre reappearance of Bernthal late in the film – also diffuse any rising sense of danger or confrontation.

‘The Amateur’ does have its moments: the fight scenes provide a jolt of whiplash, violent oomph, and Charlie’s inventive traps for his targets are the thriller equivalents of something out of a ‘Saw’ film. While ‘The Amateur’ does provide a certain level of entertainment for a more grown-up audience, it may not be enough to get them to a movie theater – which is exactly where we need more of this stuff.

The Amateur

"Don't underestimate him."

PG-132 hr 3 minApr 11th, 2025

Showtimes & Tickets

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... Read the Plot

What is the plot of ‘The Amateur’?

A quiet CIA cryptographer (Rami Malek) is driven by grief and vengeance to seek out the terrorists who killed his wife (Rachel Brosnahan), but soon finds himself pursued by his own agency instead.