At The Movies: Rami Malek shines as vengeful spy in The Amateur

The Amateur (PG13)

122 minutes, opens on April 10
★★★☆☆

The story: Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) has a desk job with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a specialist in signals intelligence. After his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a terrorist attack, he tries to convince his bosses to take quick and decisive action. To his dismay, they drag their feet. When he asks for permission to carry out operations on his own, his handlers tell him it would be suicidal. He does so anyway, using his skills in IT and codebreaking to find the killers and evade his employers. The film is based on the 1981 novel of the same title by Robert Littell. 

A glance at the trailer gives viewers a fairly accurate idea of The Amateur’s premise, which asks: “What if Jason Bourne were a nerd?” A variant might be, “What if Liam Neeson’s angry dad in Taken (2008) was an IT guy?”

Most times, the wildly unqualified spy is the stuff of comedies. But Malek’s Charlie is a deadly serious man, a grief-stricken husband carrying out a vendetta. 

The story tries to sell the idea that Charlie, as the title suggests, is a desk jockey out of his depth in the field. That might have been the case in the source novel, but not here, because he is anything but an ordinary guy. He sees all and knows all through his superhuman ability to tap into phones, computers and surveillance cameras.

There are hints that he might be on the spectrum, lacking the social graces and charm that field agents possess. Other than making Charlie quiet and awkward, the screenplay fails to give him a handicap that matters. 

The rogue agent mostly runs circles around his former bosses at the CIA and the terrorists. His prodigious talent in IT is a form of magic that spirits him out of any sticky situation. It is a convenient screenwriting tactic, useful in fantasy spy dramas like the Mission: Impossible film series (1996 to 2025), but disappointing to see in a more grounded work like this one. The Amateur feels as if it is too scared to embrace its premise of an incompetent protagonist.

However, there are a couple of clever moments that indicate a degree of thoughtfulness in the writing. When Charlie is in a tight spot, he turns to an instructional YouTube video, as a newbie might. He is also hopeless in physical encounters. The story could have given him brainy fighting skills, in the style of Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes (2009).

Thankfully, British film-maker James Hawes, a seasoned director of slow-burn thriller television such as the spy drama Slow Horses (2022 to present), tries to make Charlie the opposite of an action hero – an anti-John Wick – and he mostly succeeds.

The story honours Charlie’s grief, making sure Sarah is more than a plot device. Hawes gives the film a steady, suspenseful pace that never flags, despite its many dialogue-heavy moments.

Malek was born to play Charlie – his monotone delivery, slight build and twitchy body are perfect for the character happier with codes and computers than he is with people. His portrayal of a man frozen with a deer-in-headlights look when the bullets fly is so good that the story’s reliance on the trope of the expert with conveniently magical IT skills can be forgiven.  

Hot take: Oscar winner Malek is no amateur when it comes to his latest performance as the grieving husband on a rampage.