The Amateur

If you’ve ever wanted to see what happens when the guy who resets your forgotten passwords finally snaps, The Amateur is your specific brand of cinematic fever dream. It’s a classic "man on a mission" setup, but instead of a square-jawed commando with a neck wider than his head, we get Rami Malek looking like he desperately needs a nap and a Vitamin D supplement. In an era where action heroes are increasingly indestructible gods or quippy superheroes, there’s something genuinely refreshing about a protagonist who looks like he’d struggle to carry a heavy bag of groceries, let alone a Beretta.

I watched this in a theater where the air conditioning was set to "Arctic Tundra," and the guy two seats over was aggressively snacking on what smelled like salt-and-vinegar chips. Strangely, the sharp, stinging scent of the vinegar matched the cold, clinical aesthetic of the CIA offices on screen perfectly. It’s that kind of movie—it doesn’t wrap you in a warm blanket; it invites you into a world of gray cubicles and even grayer morality.

Revenge of the Desk Jockey

The plot kicks off with a tragedy in London that claims the wife of Charlie Heller (Rami Malek). Heller isn’t a field agent; he’s a decoder, a guy who finds patterns in the noise. When his superiors, played with a delightful level of bureaucratic apathy by Holt McCallany and Laurence Fishburne, refuse to go after the terrorists responsible, Heller decides to blackmail his own agency into training him.

What follows is a middle-finger to the "instant expert" trope. Watching Laurence Fishburne’s character, Henderson, try to turn this jittery analyst into a killer is the highlight of the first act. It’s not a slick montage of bullseyes and backflips. It’s messy. It’s awkward. Rami Malek’s face is 80% eyes and 20% cheekbones, which is basically cheating for a thriller actor, but he uses that physicality to convey a man who is clearly out of his depth but possessed by a singular, vibrating focus. He doesn't look like he's having fun, and neither are we, but we're strapped in for the ride.

Clarity Over Chaos

Director James Hawes, who proved he knows his way around a dingy spy office with Slow Horses, brings a welcome level of restraint here. In a post-John Wick world, every action movie feels the need to be a neon-soaked ballet of high-frame-rate carnage. The Amateur goes the other way. The action is frantic and desperate. When Heller gets into a scrap, it feels like a struggle for oxygen. He isn’t winning because he’s a better fighter; he’s winning because he’s a better thinker.

The cinematography by Martin Ruhe captures a Europe that feels cold and lived-in, favoring shadows and sharp lines over flashy filters. It reminds me of the mid-budget thrillers of the 90s—think The Fugitive—where the stakes felt physical rather than global. Volker Bertelmann’s score keeps the pulse high without resorting to the "BWAHH" horns that have plagued trailers for the last decade. It’s a precise, ticking-clock soundscape that mirrors Heller’s analytical mind.

A Stacked Bench

The supporting cast is essentially a "Who’s Who" of character actors you’re always happy to see. Rachel Brosnahan pops up as Sarah, providing a necessary human tether for Heller as he slides further into his obsession. Michael Stuhlbarg and Danny Sapani round out a group that makes the CIA feel like a real, functioning (and failing) institution rather than a cartoonish lair.

Interestingly, this film is a remake of a 1981 movie of the same name, but writers Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli have cleverly updated the "amateur" angle for the digital age. In the original, it was about Cold War tradecraft; here, it’s about how a brilliant mind can weaponize the very systems designed to protect us. It’s a "legacy" remake that actually understands what to keep and what to delete.

The film does stumble slightly in its final third, where the plot twists start to pile up like a multi-car pileup on the M1. It’s a contemporary cinema trend—the need to have three endings when one good one would do—but the performances keep it grounded. Even when the logic gets a bit stretchy, you’re still rooting for the guy who looks like he’s never seen the sun.

The Amateur is a solid, intelligent thriller that manages to stand out by leaning into its protagonist's weaknesses rather than his strengths. It’s a great example of what contemporary mid-budget cinema can be when it stops trying to build a "universe" and just tries to tell a coherent, tense story. If you're tired of invincible heroes and want a revenge story with a bit more brainpower, this is well worth your time and a bucket of popcorn. Just maybe skip the salt-and-vinegar chips if you're sitting next to me.