Movie Review – Amateur, The (2025)
Principal Cast : Rami Malek, Laurence Fishburne, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitriona Balfe, Michael Stuhlbarg, Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, Danny Sapani, Jon Bernthal, Adrian Martinez, Max Rissmann, Joseph Millson, Henry Garrett, Alice Hawkin.
Synopsis: 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.
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Commendably mounted but too stoic and repressed for its own good, James Hawes’ adaptation of Robert Littell’s 1981 novel – the second, following a Canadian film also released that year – is frustrating yet laced with class, unable to generate any real tension thanks to a sour script and Rami Malek’s far-too-enigmatic performance. As an Oscar-winning actor, Malek commands considerable respect whenever he’s on screen, although the character he plays here is a far cry from your typical Hollywood action hero. Malek’s role is that of a basement-dwelling CIA analyst with few physical skills beyond a high intellect, which hardly lends itself to gunplay, car chases or the expected fisticuffs with assorted Bad Guys. While the concept is certainly compelling in a post-Bourne Identity world – and this film borrows liberally from that franchise – the execution consistently misses the mark.
Malek plays CIA analyst Charlie Heller, whose wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan – Superman) is killed in a terrorist attack in London. Distraught, Heller pleads with his superiors, Deputy CIA Director Alex Moore (Holt McCallany) and handler Caleb Horowitz (Danny Sapani), to let him track down those responsible, only to discover a tangled knot of corruption and bureaucracy that threatens to derail his mission. When he’s forced to blackmail his bosses to get his way, Heller is granted special training by a mentor, Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne), before jetting off to Europe in pursuit of the truth. Along the way, he reconnects with a long-time secret contact, Inquiline (Caitriona Balfe), who aids his increasingly desperate search for justice.
A curious hybrid of Taken, Jason Bourne, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I was enthused by both the premise and pedigree of The Amateur well before I saw it. That it proves such a letdown is less due to its individual parts and more to do with the absence of that ineffable spark required to make the whole thing enjoyable. The Amateur has moments of promise, but it’s hardly a classic, despite a respectable supporting cast around Malek and the seasoned hand of director James Hawes. The film is saturated in despair and fatalism, with Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli’s overwrought screenplay flitting between indulgent espionage clichés and earnest humanistic rage – and indulging both too often for its own good.
It’s a film trying to juggle too many ideas. Malek’s take on the nerdy, emotionally wrecked CIA desk-jockey could have been far more compelling had the character been more sharply written. The revenge arc that drives Heller could easily have landed with the same catharsis seen in John Wick – the film even has the nerve to borrow that template – but neither Hawes nor Malek can render Heller an engaging protagonist. Instead, he’s largely ineffective, stumbling through the plot and lucking into outcomes that ought to be earned. Malek isn’t the kind of actor you’d expect to lead an action movie, and this script doesn’t do him any favours. His portrayal lacks conviction, and the screenplay offers little depth or clarity as to who Heller really is. There are scattered moments of levity and familiar character beats, but they amount to precious little.
The supporting cast is equally underserved. Holt McCallany, Laurence Fishburne and Caitriona Balfe are solid but stuck delivering boilerplate dialogue, providing narrative scaffolding for Heller’s mission but not much else. Plot threads are picked up and discarded without consequence, and the cloak-and-dagger tension the story so desperately wants to build just isn’t there. A surprise appearance by Jon Bernthal is a fleeting delight in an otherwise dour, meandering film. Michael Stuhlbarg, as the man responsible for Sarah’s death, gives a compelling – if criminally brief – turn in the film’s climax, which arrives like a wet thud, full of strained emotional catharsis and little payoff. Rachel Brosnahan is entirely wasted, relegated to flashbacks and hallucinations that add texture but no real weight.
The Amateur is a film of high expectations and middling delivery. It’s inert and passionless, built on shadowy motivations and anchored by a central character so physically inept it’s a wonder he made it out of his basement office. Malek does his best to make something of the role, but it’s just not enough to spark life into this thing. The revenge beats are serviceable but undercut by Hawes’ technically sound yet weirdly lifeless direction, and the film’s climax is so jarring it undoes most of what came before. Confused, cold, and ultimately forgettable, The Amateur is one you can safely skip.
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