A meek, borderline wimpy guy is secretly a deadly killer. Sound familiar? It's a plot that's been done to death lately, with enjoyable highs (Nobody) and disappointing lows (Love Hurts). The Amateur is somewhere in the middle.
Rami Malek stars as Charlie Heller, a tech whiz and encryption mastermind who works for the CIA. When his adoring wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a terrorist attack, he's astonished the higher-ups won't immediately seek revenge on everyone involved. So he blackmails his war crime-loving boss (Holt McCallany) into letting him train as a field agent to kill them all himself. Enter Laurence Fishburne as Col. Henderson, whose deadpan annoyance at this assignment provides the film's only levity.
Though he makes a fool of himself during training, Charlie is several steps ahead of not only his bosses but also the audience. He sneaks into countries, offices, and hotels undetected, despite not possessing a single ounce of charm. He's not James Bond or the Saint. He's closer to Ben Affleck's character in The Accountant, though with zero shooting skills. Yet the film's story remains compelling as Charlie constantly finds ways to dispatch his enemies without ever firing a shot. He uses his greatest asset – his brain – to find the ideal way to eliminate his targets.
The problem is that no one he encounters, whether friend or foe, is a real character. They're just there to keep the story moving, providing assistance or obstacles until they're no longer useful. It's fine that Charlie is a blank, but when almost everyone else is, the film doesn't resonate as well as it could have. And a subplot featuring Julianne Nicholson as the new CIA director promising a new era of transparency goes nowhere. There's a world where this might work better as a limited series, but that would have likely involved less qualified actors and a smaller budget.
In its current form, The Amateur is never less than entertaining. But a little more polish – especially on the script – could have made this a remarkable spy thriller.
