Review: 'The Amateur' starring Rami Malek promises more than it delivers
Rami Malek is intriguingly cast as Charlie Heller, a desk-bound CIA decoder who finds himself the unlikeliest of action heroes when his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed by terrorists and he vows to avenge her.
So begins "The Amateur," now looking to hit pay dirt in theaters.
Based on Robert Littell's dated 1981 bestseller, "The Amateur" -- previously filmed that same year -- is a familiar but promising premise for a movie, a nerd turns badass, that frustratingly promises more than it delivers in suspense, tension and a reason for being.
Director James Hawes, known for his solid television work on "Slow Horses," "Snowpiercer" and "Black Mirror," goes through the motions of a script by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli that falls short of John le Carre's spy gamesmanship. It's also no fun in the James Bond sense of going rogue. That leaves Malek and a top cast to resuscitate the scraps they're stuck with. That they do.
Ever since he won an Oscar for playing flamboyant Queen rocker Freddie Mercury in 2018's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (he also has an Emmy for "Mr. Robot"), Malek, 43, has had trouble finding his legs as an actor, veering from Bond villain ("No Time to Die") to peripheral characters in big movies ("Oppenheimer," "Amsterdam").
Though the script lets him down, "The Amateur" plays to Malek's expertise at off-center loners. His Charlie is a self-proclaimed "wife guy," whose world shatters over Sarah's murder, shown in gruesome CCTV footage. Brosnahan, of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," invests Sarah, seen mostly in flashbacks, with such winsome sweetness that Charlie's loss really sinks in.
This wife guy stands in marked contrast to the macho posturing of his CIA supervisor, Alex Moore (Holt McCallany) and his lackey, Caleb (Danny Sapani), who are clearly hiding something. There's also a blustering, retired colonel named Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) and a swaggering secret agent, known as "The Bear," portrayed by "The Bear" costar Jon Bernthal.
Charlie clearly needs help. In a rare lighthearted sequence, he consults a YouTube video on how to pick a lock. Still, our misfit hero knows how to make cool computer gadgetry bow to his will.
The pace picks up when Charlie globe trots from London, Paris, Marseille, Madrid and Istanbul to Romania and Russia in pursuit of the four assassins, led by a mystery villain (the superb Michael Stuhlbarg), responsible for leaving him wifeless. Though the last part of "The Amateur" goes off the deep end of absurdity, the actors reel us in.
Charlie blackmails his shady bosses to give him espionage training. He gets support at the office from CIA's Alice O'Brien (Julianne Nicholson) and later by a fellow computer hacker (Caitriona Balfe), but Charlie is basically on his own with only his brain to take on the brawn.
In a cinema world stoked by violence and gore, it's a relief to see a character rely on his wits to bring down the baddies. Sadly, Charlie soon resorts to the blood-splattered collateral damage used by his enemies, which negates his restraint, along with the moral point of the film.
"The Amateur," which works only in fits and starts, is at war with its own better angels. It gets the job done without going the extra mile. But like its star, it's terrifically, twitchily watchable.
