The Amateur review: Rami Malek and epic set-pieces can't save patchy espionage drama
Oscar-winner Malek is an unlikely hero in a film hindered by a sub-standard script
Disney
- James Mottram
★★☆☆☆
The Amateur is released in cinemas on Friday 11 April 2025. Add it to your watchlist
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The elevator pitch for The Amateur is enticing: a grief-torn CIA analyst goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. From keyboard warrior to actual warrior, you might say. It would be like the wimpy Benji, Simon Pegg’s character in the Mission: Impossible series, giving Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt the afternoon off as he tracks down villains. No wonder actor Rami Malek was drawn to this adaptation of Robert Littell’s 1981 novel, which was previously made into a little-seen TV movie with Christopher Plummer.
In truth, Malek has struggled to find good leading movie roles outside of his Oscar-winning turn as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Largely, he’s taken on supporting characters, as with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. But more often than not he’s been let down, not least in James Bond film No Time To Die, with his turn as bio-terrorist Safin a non-event.
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Arguably, he’s never found anything quite as good as Mr Robot, the show about cyber hackers that first introduced us to him.
The Amateur, however, gives Malek the chance to play the unlikely hero. He is Charles Heller, a CIA cryptographer working at Langley, Virginia. He’s highly skilled at his work, but no field operative. Until, that is, his wife Sarah (The Marvellous Mrs Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan) is murdered in a terrorist attack in London.
Left distraught, he wants the perpetrators brought to justice, but his CIA superiors are unwilling to commit manpower or act on the intelligence he swiftly gathers. Frustrated, he demands they train him in the ways of an assassin, so he can pull the trigger himself.
His reluctant bosses eventually acquiesce to his demands, hooking him up with Colonel Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne), who assesses Charlie’s skills (or lack of them). Not only is he a terrible shot, he doesn’t have the guts to pull the trigger face-to-face. But refusing to give up, Charlie goes rogue, escaping Henderson’s clutches and heading to Paris, where he sets about taking down the first of the four terrorists with an admittedly novel approach – plaguing the asthma-suffering baddie with pollen (no, really).
Rami Malek as Charlie Heller in The Amateur. 20th Century Studios
Unfortunately, as Charlie plays hit-man, bouncing from Paris to Madrid to Istanbul, it’s here where The Amateur starts to crumble. Quite apart from the morally dubious nature of his revenge mission, Malek’s character is sucked into an increasingly murky and mishandled plot that sees him uncover high-level conspiracy in the CIA involving secret Black Ops missions. Logic soon flies out the window, as support characters conveniently come-and-go (Jon Bernthal’s operative being the worst offender).
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British director James Hawes previously made the well-received true-life tearjerker One Life, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, but here can’t get a grip on the story. No doubt, the action scenes are excellent. Notably, when Charlie confronts one of the villains, who is using a glass-bottomed hotel pool, some sixteen storeys in the air, that spans the structure like a bridge. The sequence is an incredible one, worthy of inclusion in a Mission: Impossible movie. But a spectacular set-piece does not make up for a sub-standard script.
While Malek is talented enough to keep you engaged, despite the messy plot, he does have some help along the way.
Laurence Fishburne as Laurence Fishburne as Henderson and Rami Malek as Charlie in The Amateur. 20th Century Studios
Caitríona Balfe (Belfast) shows her range as a widow who comes to Charlie’s aid out in the field (and, like him, has endured the loss of a loved one). Plenty of other character actors, like Holt McCallany (Mindhunter), Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) and Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) also flash before your eyes.
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But ultimately the film rests on Malek’s shoulders, and even he can’t help steer this patchy, problematic espionage story.
Authors
James Mottram
James Mottram is a London-based film critic, journalist, and author.
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