In The Amateur, Freddie Mercury takes matters into his own hands after his wife, Lois Lane, is murdered by terrorists–by embarking on a multinational vacation to kill those responsible and piss off his CIA bosses. The result: an entertaining if somewhat forgettable thriller that fizzles in the homestretch.
Rami Malek plays Heller, a semi-nerdy and presumably autistic top-grade CIA data analyst who devises clever if overly complicated means to rid the world of a couple of baddies in Europe, because hand-to-hand combat and shooting guns aren’t exactly his sweet spots. Rachel Brosnahan, soon to appear in the new Superman movie, gets second billing despite being dead for 98% of the film.
As movies go, there is something refreshingly simple about The Amateur, a straightforward revenge thriller where the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and those who deserve it get what’s coming to them. Malek makes for an effective, incredibly smart protagonist who is always a step ahead of the action, and speaking of action, there’s just enough of it to move the story along at a fast clip.
It’s a fun watch, though admittedly some post-European jet lag tried hard to get the best of me as the movie progressed.
But in the end, there’s nothing special about The Amateur. The kill scenes are sort of clever but questionable in reality, and the most jaw-dropping one is shown in the trailers. Heller is no physical juggernaut but he feels invincible; director James Hawes never gets the movie to a point where you think he’s in any real danger. Further, there is no defining moment that makes you want to come back for seconds.
The plot, while fairly basic, doesn’t always make complete sense, either. The connection between Sarah’s death and CIA director Moore (Holt McCallany) is obtuse; it’s not super obvious why Malek made the decision early on to turn his own agency into the enemy. There are reasons explained, but it all feels like filmmakers forcing things together to make the story work rather than the other way around.
The climax, too, is a disappointment. Rather than build to something epic, The Amateur plays as if the movie ran out of ideas or budget, or both. The final thought I had while the end credits rolled was, “That’s it?”
The Amateur feels like a modern day version of a B-grade action-thriller from the 90s–it’s perfectly good, easy to watch, and not a terrible way to spend a couple of hours. It’s also, in hindsight, unremarkable and more likely to become a hit on home video than make a splash in theaters.
Review by Erik Samdahl.