The Amateur

Half Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan and half revenge fantasy, The Amateur stars Rami Malek as CIA cryptographer Charlie Heller who blackmails his way into the field with some incriminating evidence against his boss (Holt McCallany) after the death of Charlie's wife (Rachel Brosnahan). Out of his element, but not without some skills of his own, Charlie gets a crash course by another operative (Laurence Fishburne) before disappearing and chasing down those responsible for his wife's murder.

Adapting the Robert Littell novel, not all of Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli's script centered around a revenge killer unable to bring himself to shoot a gun works. The Amateur is nearly as awkward in spots as it is thrilling, but the choice of Malek as unconventional leading man, and his exotic but ingenious attacks (which we could use more of), leans into its uniqueness giving the film a hook that's worth seeing through to the end. 

Fishburne, Brosnahan (seen mostly in flashbacks and hallucinations), McCallany, and Julianne Nicholson as Charlie's boss' boss are all fine here, but are largely superfluous as the film really rests on Malek's shoulders who keeps the story moving towards his end goal hunting the killers who are equally interchangeable. However, any time Malek isn't on-screen the film does suffer.

The plot involving him getting help from a Russian asset (Caitríona Balfe) feels more like a workaround plot device used to write Charlie out of impossible situations rather than offering anything additional to the story. There are also a few plot holes (such as how unobservant the CIA is and how Charlie restocks so easily after disaster strikes) that can't get entirely glossed over by Charlie's quick thinking or jumping ahead to the next action scene. That said, for the right audience, The Amateur is still a fun time especially when Charlie's ingenuity intersects with an opportunity for creative revenge.

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• Title: The Amateur
• IMDb: link