The Amateur

Movie Name: The Amateur
Year of Release: 2025
Director: James Hawes
Starring: Rami Malek, Laurence Fishburne, Caitriona Balfe, Holt McCallany, Rachel Brosnahan, Julianne Nicholson, Danny Sapani, Jon Bernthal, Tiffany Gray, Adrian Martinez, Michael Stuhlbarg, Marthe Keller
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 3
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

James Hawes has a long directorial career, one shaped mostly by TV shows and TV movies, with "The Amateur" being his feature sophomore directorial effort, following his debut with the well received "One Life" with Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter. "The Amateur" follows the narrative of Charlie Heller, a CIA cryptographer, who is married to Sarah and leads a rather serene existence. Sarah goes to London on a work trip and while there is shot and killed during a terrorist attack. Charlie is devastated and has a difficult time overcoming the situation, and presses his bosses to do something about it. He decides to do his own investigation of what happened, and courtesy of his technological abilities, he is able to uncover the originators of the attack. He shares this information with leadership who still do nothing to bring those parties to justice. Charlie eventually uncovers that there's been some off the cuff activities being commandeered by his boss, and he leverages that knowledge, blackmailing them into letting him go into the field and seek revenge on what happened to his wife. He goes through a brief training period with Hendo, who explains to Charlie his considerable limitations in being a field agent, but that doesn't deter him in the least. He manages to evade everyone and goes off to Europe where he stars pursuing the terrorists involved in the incident, with his boss, and the new CIA lead also looking into what is happening.

"The Amateur" is in a lot of ways the polar opposite of Robert Ludlum and what Paul Greengrass created with "The Bourne Identity" film series (and the character Jason Bourne for that matter). One would be tempted to think with that angle that "The Amateur" would be a more grounded character driven, almost similar to John Le Carré, type of film. Sadly it isn't, and it's ultimately a film that has a rather banal tone to it, taking giant leaps of believability (which one can tolerate), and where characters pop in and out without much relevance or context. Charlie and Sarah never get much background on who they are, we get some Hallmark vignettes of what their relationship was like. The only character we get a sense of color and dimension to is Caitriona Balfe's Inquiline, who provides a brief but relevant explanation of who she is, why she does what she does, and her reasonings for eventually helping Charlie. It's a film where the director does try to emulate the aesthetic of Paul Greengrass' "Bourne" films, but it lacks the conviction, sense of urgency or danger, and ultimately fails in conveying what is really at risk (also it's difficult to understand how long are these events going for, is it days/weeks/months?). Also, and just peppering the ridiculousness of the third arc of the film, the rather Shakespearean exchange between Rami Malek's Charlie and Michael Stuhlbarg's Horst, just keeps on going, and is completely nonsensical. The cast is a bit all over the place, with Caitriona Balfe, Laurence Fishburne, Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, and Danny Sapani getting off this experience with their reputations unscathed, however Rami Malek (who won a series of awards a few years back lip-syncing to Freddie Mercury), demonstrates just how limited his range is, while it's puzzling as to why Rachel Brosnahan took such a thankless part on this film. The production team is solid, particularly Martin Ruhe's cinematography. It's a mediocre endeavor and a film everyone will quickly forget.