The Amateur (dir. James Hawes)

by Jack Martin | Apr 12, 2025

Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 123 mins

UK Distributor: 20th Century Studios

UK Release Date: 11 April 2025

WHO’S IN THE AMATEUR?

Rami Malek, Laurence Fishburne, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitríona Balfe, Jon Bernthal, Michael Stuhlbarg, Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, Adrian Martinez, Danny Sapani, Takehiro Hira

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

James Hawes (director), Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli (writers), Joel B. Michaels, Hutch Parker and Dan Wilson (producers), Volker Bertelmann (composer), Martin Ruhe (cinematographer), Jonathan Amos (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A lowly CIA clerk (Malek) sets out to avenge a close loss…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE AMATEUR?

One of the many reasons why the likes of James Bond and Jason Bourne have become so beloved within the world of espionage cinema is that their skillset in both physical combat and weaponry, in addition to their emotional detachment that creates a general aura of mystery about them, makes them masculine heroes designed as the attainable male role model. But lately, as the conversation about gender stereotypes has shifted, movies – particularly within the spy genre – are starting to embrace different ideas of what a male espionage hero can and should be, including as recently as Black Bag wherein Michael Fassbender’s spy expressed profound dedication to his wife which, in past eras, would have been dismissed as overly submissive and even un-manly.

It’s a similar but ultimately different story with The Amateur, which once again recontextualises the typical male hero in espionage cinema as an emotionally driven agent whose compassion and commitment to the love in his life makes him equal parts vulnerable and unstoppable. Though in the case of director James Hawes’s film, the examination of what makes a modern spy hero often takes a back seat to some rather silly yet surprisingly entertaining action that certainly sticks to convention but keeps things engaging enough for the viewer to go along with.

An adaptation of Robert Littell’s novel of the same name, The Amateur follows CIA cryptologist Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) who, in addition to being highly skilled at his tech-heavy desk job, also leads a quiet life in a countryside home with his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan). However, when he learns that Sarah has been killed in a terrorist attack whilst on a business trip in London, and that not much will be done to bring those responsible to justice, Charlie’s grief drives him to demand his superiors, including Deputy Director Alex Moore (Holt McCallany), to grant him resources so that he can personally track down and kill the at-large terrorists, using incriminating documents to blackmail them into doing so. But while initial training under the watch of Colonel Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) shows that he is more tech savvy than he is at firing a gun, Charlie nonetheless puts his skills to good use in the field, all while evading Moore’s forceful tactics in order to silence his unlikely operative.

Although The Amateur is ultimately more focused on delivering straightforward action-thriller beats, it still manages to take considerable time to flesh out the fact that our hero, unlike Bond and Bourne before him, really is just a regular guy finding himself in an unlikely position. The script, by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, gives Rami Malek’s Charlie an interesting arc as he goes from this fairly mild-mannered clerk to a man so consumed by vengeance that he’s often willing to go to extremes – from blackmailing his powerful bosses to creating elaborate explosives either as a distraction or as a method of murder – in order to feel some kind of closure to the loss in his life.

Though you’ve certainly seen this kind of arc before, here it’s written in a way where you do find yourself engaged with the character since he is smart enough to know right from wrong but not enough to know how to do more practical things like pick a lock (he has to resort to a YouTube tutorial on how to do that in one scene), which to an extent highlights his imperfections in ways that make it less certain that he’ll emerge to fight another day as Bond and Bourne have in the past.

Of course, Malek’s strong lead performance helps considerably to sell the character’s fluctuating emotional state, to where you truly feel his steely-eyed anger when he’s confronted by the injustice that has shaken his world, though he also leaves room for Charlie’s vulnerability to overshadow what are otherwise some pretty hardcore scenes of suspense. The cast as a whole features some commendable performances, from character actors like Fishburne and McCallany to Outlander’s Caitríona Balfe who has a meaty role as an unexpected ally, though a number of high-profile names are unfortunately wasted, namely Rachel Brosnahan who’s really there to just be the dead wife and nothing more, while Jon Bernthal has even less to do in a role that easily could have been cut out of the movie without changing anything about the wider narrative.

That’s not the only chink in the film’s armour, for its pacing can sometimes be a bit too slow for its own good, particularly throughout the beginning when a series of fairly repetitive scenes of the hero grieving his wife dominate the majority of the first act, to where you’re eager for the movie to finally get a move on. There are also some aspects to the hero’s mission that get way too ridiculous for this kind of film, such as some of the ways he evades CIA capture and brings down at least one of the villains which require a significant amount of suspension of disbelief for you to piece together how this guy is able to do all of this, seemingly with fewer and fewer traceable resources at hand. It’s not an especially twist-heavy movie, for the villains are made very apparent early on without concealing their true motives until the climax, but there are some late reveals which, again, feel oddly implausible (including one scene that screams of being added in reshoots).

There are certainly a number of flaws to The Amateur, but it’s entertaining enough to keep you engaged, thanks to some strong direction and performances, as well as having a lead character who’s more identifiable than other spy movie heroes, which in an age when that kind of masculinity is being increasingly challenged and revised is a fun yet silly step in the right direction.

Still, stick with Black Bag for a much smarter take on this new kind of spy hero.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Amateur is an entertaining but rather silly action-thriller that introduces a compelling new kind of spy movie hero in a slowly-paced narrative that often leans into overly ridiculous territory.