THE STORY – Charlie Heller is a brilliant CIA decoder whose world comes crashing down when his wife dies in a London terrorist attack. When his supervisors refuse to take action, his intelligence becomes the ultimate weapon as he embarks on a dangerous trek across the globe to track down those responsible.
THE CAST – Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitríona Balfe, Jon Bernthal, Michael Stuhlbarg & Laurence Fishburne
THE TEAM – James Hawes (Director), Ken Nolan & Gary Spinelli (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 123 Minutes
Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) appears to be living a comfortable life. He lives in a secluded farmhouse with his loving wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), where he spends his free time fixing up an old Cessna plane. He has a high-security job with the CIA, but his risk-averse nature keeps him working in the Decryption & Analysis sub-basement, not out in the field. All that changes on the day when CIA directors O’Brien (Julianne Nicholson) and Moore (Holt McCallany) bring him in to tell him that Sarah was killed at a work conference in London, a hostage taken after some sort of illicit deal went wrong. Unable to think of anything else, Charlie demands the agency train him to track the internationally wanted criminals responsible for her death so that he can kill them himself. Moore is about to laugh him out of his office when Charlie plays his trump card: He has evidence that Moore has been running his own undercover black ops missions, blaming the loss of thousands of lives on isolated acts of terror, and Charlie will release it to the public if he doesn’t get what he wants. Now, with only the most basic field training available, Charlie has to figure out how to kill his wife’s killers without getting caught by them or the CIA operatives hunting him down to ensure he can’t be a whistleblower.
If that plot outline didn’t clarify, “The Amateur” is as pure a piece of pulp as they come. However, it’s an unusually sensitive piece of pulp in the hands of director James Hawes and star Rami Malek. Not that the emotion of the story ever completely overwhelms the film’s popcorn thriller bona fides, but in between the fistfights and car chases come many scenes of Malek’s Charlie working through his feelings, first on his own and later with a confidential informant (Catriona Balfe) who agrees to help him on his quest. Her husband, an ex-KGB agent, died some time ago, and after learning all she could from him, she adopted his code name in his absence. Giving Charlie such an obvious direct parallel could go wrong quite easily, but Hawes (mostly known for his television work with the BBC but most recently the director of the Anthony Hopkins Holocaust survivor drama “One Life“) knows when to push and when to back off. He gives these more somber, character-driven scenes room to breathe, allowing the audience to really feel Charlie’s pain from not just his wife’s loss but from his desire for revenge.
Unlike the heroes of most revenge thrillers, Charlie seems painfully aware that his chances of survival are slim and that even if he succeeds, it likely won’t fully satisfy him. In his best performance since winning the Oscar for the dreadful “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Malek delves deep to show Charlie’s distress. He’s remarkable when first learning of Sarah’s death, perfectly capturing the willful denial that comes when you know the truth but don’t want to let yourself believe it. Thankfully, he never dives too deep into melodrama, keeping Charlie’s hurt always bubbling under the surface but never entirely breaking through into big outward displays of emotion. Charlie is a man who understands both that every move he makes might be his last and that every move he makes is likely being watched, and Malek makes brilliant use of his ultra-wide eyes and unassuming demeanor to generate genuine tension whenever Charlie has to execute his tech-heavy plans; will this be the moment where he finally breaks? Will he actually go through with killing people, however, indirectly?
The film would be quite a drag if it leaned too heavily on all this sadness, though. Thankfully, the rest of the ideally cast, overqualified ensemble leans into their stock characters and gives the film plenty of color. Brosnahan makes the most of her tragic supportive wife role, effectively selling Sarah and Charlie’s deep connection in just a few minutes of screen time. Nicholson and McCallany are perfect opposites as the morally upstanding politician and the scheming long-time spy running things at the CIA, respectively. Laurence Fisburne does his thing in the Laurence Fisburne role as Charlie’s grizzled veteran training officer, who must later hunt him down even as Charlie earns his begrudging respect. Jon Bernthal gives the film such a healthy dose of loose, comic energy as one of the agency’s most respected field agents that it’s a shame the film doesn’t use him more.
While it’s easy to quibble with how the screenplay uses its characters, at least Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli have given them some cracking, good dialogue, which the actors deliver with relish. The film entertains without ever going over the top, keeping its pulpy heart beating strong but investing it with a gravity that keeps it grounded. Hawes manages the neat trick of keeping the film’s action moving at a swift pace while letting the character moments breathe, creating a fully satisfying viewing experience. However, when the film finally reaches its big climax, he errs too much on the side of the more stately character drama, leaving the genre-required big final reveal to wither on the vine. It’s the film’s one big misstep, and the fact that it comes right at the end hurts, but that doesn’t stop the rest of the movie from being a good time. The cleverly constructed setpieces are especially thrilling thanks to Volker Bertelmann’s throbbing score, which adds urgency to Martin Ruhe’s sleek cinematography. “The Amateur” has thrills and emotion in equal measure, and while it may lose that balance by the time it reaches its final destination, the journey getting there is clearly the work of consummate pros.
