REVIEW — “The Amateur”

In The Amateur, Oscar® winner Malek stars as Charlie Heller, a brilliant CIA analyst who works in decryption and analysis in a basement office at Langley headquarters. The slightly awkward and unassuming surveillance expert accidentally uncovers incriminating evidence on his superiors just before a London terrorist attack results in the death of his loving wife (Rachel Brosnahan).

Grief stricken and angry at agency inaction, Charlie takes matters into his own hands by blackmailing his corrupt superiors (Holt McCallany and Danny Sapani) into granting him covert affairs, firearms and explosives training. However, Charlie’s biggest weapon is his mind. Fortunately, Charlie likes puzzles: he’s the kind of guy who dismantles and reassembles single engine airplanes as a hobby. He uses his intellect to stay two steps ahead of his pursuers, including his experienced CIA handler, Robert Henderson (Lawrence Fishburne).

A military lieutenant who exists in a moral gray area between honor to his country and to his men, Fishburne’s character is hard to crack. Tasked with training Charlie, he quickly grows fond of his impressive-but-physically weak pupil; however, he is prepared to put Charlie down if he becomes a threat to the agency. When Charlie goes rogue and travels abroad to avenge the death of his wife, Fishburne is hot on his trail. Henderson knows that Charlie can’t bring himself to physically pull the trigger and take another man’s life. Instead, Charlie achieves his revenge through a series of well-staged deathtraps that absolve him of any blood on his hands.

Jumping from London to Istanbul, Charlie methodically works his way up through a terrorist cell of henchmen and thieves until he reaches his wife’s killer, offering each of them a way out as he pumps them for information. But there is no escaping his traps. This is where Charlie evolves from a nerdy Jack Ryan-esque analyst suddenly thrust into a world of espionage into a Jigsaw-in-training killer who plots clever ways to dispatch his enemies. That’s not to say Charlie loses his soul or lacks a moral compass. Like Henderson following his orders, Charlie is a man-on-a-mission, and he will do whatever is necessary to achieve his objective.

As Charlie, Malek plays a mild-mannered and deeply introverted CIA analyst who is always deep in thought, so much so that you can see the gears turning behind Malek’s eyes as Charlie considers each of his next moves.
Charlie’s personal tragedy hits deeply thanks to Malek’s emotional reactions, however brief. It’s a devastating loss that provides his character with real growth and the courage to fight back, and Malek pulls off this character arc with meticulous resolve but an almost clinical precision that’s devoid of any personality.

But the brilliance of Malek’s casting is also in its believability. Clearly in way over his head, Charlie is constantly underestimated by everyone around him because of his unassuming demeanor and unthreatening physique. His lack of field experience makes his attempts at revenge almost comical as he is forced to reference YouTube videos to pick locks and learns the hard way not to engage his targets after getting his ass beat by a female operative.

While Charlie is clearly distraught by the death of his wife and conflicted by what he must do to obtain her justice, Malek seldom lets it show on his face. Same thing with Fishburne’s character. I could have used a little more emotional hand-wringing from the pair instead of cold-blooded calculation. In fact, what the film really seems to be missing is the safety net of camaraderie that most spy films include. While Charlie is aided along the way by foreign operative Inquiline (Caitríona Balfe), she is the only person in the film that isn’t threatening to kill him.

In a completely underutilized role, in-demand actor Jon Bernthal even drops in as a work-buddy CIA spy who tries to bring Charlie in during a friendly, albeit semi-threatening, scene out in the wild. Playing his typical badass self, Bernthal could’ve been used as more of an understanding ally to Charlie, but his schedule is clearly full and probably only allowed this brief cameo. Directed by James Hawes and based on the novel by Robert Littell, the film also stars Adrian Martinez, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Julianne Nicholson.

While it arrives at a softer landing than desired, The Amateur is a cold-blooded revenge thriller that would make Jigsaw proud. 3/5

Rated PG-13 with a running time of 2 hours and 3 minutes, The Amateur opens in theaters on April 11, 2025.