The Amateur review: Rami Malek shines in lacklustre spy-thriller

James Hawes’ spy-thriller The Amateur is an action-packed ride that sustains a good appetite for suspense throughout its fairly straightforward plot, as a grief-filled man sets out to hunt down his wife’s killers. 

Minor spoilers for The Amateur below

Just passing the two-hour mark, it’s an amalgamation of the ‘ordinary man with secret spy skills’ tropes (like Nobody or John Wick) with standard federal employee spy-thrillers like Salt and The Bourne Identity. Imagine if James Bond’s Q or Mission: Impossible’s Benji fronted their own film and you’d be on the right track. 

At the start, Charles is relatively care-free in his self-made set of structures that dictate his life. He can’t be persuaded to travel and is over-invested in his work so bids his wife goodbye, giggly chasing after her in the car, as she heads to the airport for a conference in London. With no idea that a five day trip will end with her remains being flown back via plane to him. 

The CIA’s cryptographer is pulled from the windowless sub-levels of the basement into the director’s office to hear the life-shattering news that his wife has died in a freak terrorist attack in London. 

Desperate for answers, Charles scours the CCTV footage from the area presenting his own findings to the CIA to realise that they already knew everything he told them including the names and locations of several of the terrorists. It sinks in that the service is working on their own agenda to protect the country against a future attack, while Charles is only in search of one thing: revenge. 

Pushed back into his basement and forced on bereavement leave, Charles leverages the highly confidential and compromising CIA files that his source, Inquiline (Caitriona Balfe), sent through. All of these mission reports have been doctored with small tweaks to cover up unsanctioned air strikes by CIA’s chief Moore (Holt McCallany). 

It’s a classic guy-in-the-chair who gets his moment in the field when his superiors have no choice but to agree to his terms so he can hunt down the people who murdered his wife. Rather than a drastic change in his non-violent manner, The Amateur breaks the mould with this revenge arc as Charles leans into his own strengths (namely his IQ of 170) rather than miraculously becoming a trained killer in the space of two days. 

Sure, there’s a brief training montage, but at the end of his stint under the rigorous eye of agent Henderson (Laurence Fishbourne), Charles is still as useless with a gun as the moment he arrived. Instead, complicated bombs are built in bathrooms, pollen stuffed into air-tight allergen chambers, high-rise glass pools are compressed and shattered. Charles opts for sophisticated, smart deaths for someone who physically can’t seem to pull the trigger – let alone hit a target.

20th Century Studios / Walt Disney Studios

Malek is undeniably the force behind this film. He captures the sheer absurdity of coming to terms with a sudden loss, especially in traumatic and violent circumstances, as well as devising an empathetic performance as a rage-filled man who wants justice for his late wife. “She mattered,” he tells anyone who will listen. 

This belief humanises Charles, as he’s haunted by each death, struggling to come to terms with where his far-fetched escapades will land him afterwards as the CIA hunts him down. 

There’s an ever-growing feeling that The Amateur wants to develop into something more, but never fully commits to it. Seeds are sown of the CIA repeatedly ‘underestimating’ Charles’ capabilities, which fizzle but never flourish into full fruition. Deepfake tricks are held back to lose all trace of him until a more convenient time, while he never seems to showcase the extent of his abilities until surprising twists.

But as the man who designed most of their surveillance software, there’s an niggling feeling that if Charles didn’t want to be found, he’d have the means to do it… but that would make the dramatics redundant. 

Meanwhile, super-action-spy, Hal (Jon Bernthal), is billed as an unlikely ally to the basement-dwelling protagonist and there are even rumours that Charles saved his life. It’s all these planted seeds that lead to little fruition that leave a lasting feeling of absence from Hawes’ thriller. 

The Amateur also avoids common tropes of the genre such as a predictable surprise twist in the final act, but without one, the story lacks a big reveal to land the gravitas it’s building towards.

Ultimately, this film is laced with a warning. We’ve all postponed phone calls from loved ones when busy or prioritised work over family, and it’s only with hindsight we regret the small slip in judgment. For not being braver, taking a risk or breaking out of our rigid ways, and that’s ultimately what Sarah’s death kick-starts for Charles – a life much bigger than he possibly imagined. Not just tinkering with planes, but flying them, not just in the basement watching life, but being on the ground in the midst of it. 

Should you watch The Amateur?

In short, The Amateur is a good time. Malek and Fishbourne make for a great on-screen duo, and there’s entertaining spy tricks thrown into a string of well-used tropes in the genre. 

Is it revolutionary? Perhaps not, but Hawes’ thriller is a worthy addition to your watch list that provides a straight-forward, but compelling revenge arc to get grittily invested in. If you want something James Bond adjacent that celebrates that nerds truly do run and rule the world, it’s a worthwhile watch. 

The Amateur is out in cinemas on 11 April 2025. If you’re in the UK, you can get tickets from Cineworld, Vue and Odeon. Those in America can get them from AMC Theatres, Fandango and Atom Tickets.

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