PG-13 | 2h 3m | Thriller | 2025
“The Amateur” is a remake of a 1981 movie of the same name, based on a novel by Robert Littell. It’s about a scrawny CIA codebreaker named Charlie Heller (Oscar-winner Rami Malek). Seeking vengeance against a group of international terrorists that killed his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), he takes matters into his own hands. He attempts to reinvent himself as a black ops agent and goes off the reservation.
We meet Charlie in his garage, where he’s rebuilding an engine for a vintage Cessna, a birthday present from Sarah. They live in a rural area outside Washington, where super-geek Charlie works in “decryption and analysis” at a restricted level within the CIA. Tinkering on the airplane engine is the movie’s first clue—that’s a typically manly man hobby, so don’t underestimate skinny, soft-handed, keyboard Charlie—he’s reeeeaally smart.
An Assassin?
Like the original version, after Sarah is killed on a trip to London, Charlie demands, via blackmail, that his superiors train him in assassination techniques so he can track down and kill her killers himself.Director Moore (Holt McCallany) and Caleb (Danny Sapani), are understandably aghast at the request. This would throw a large monkey wrench into the CIA’s plans, which always examine the ability to mine intelligence from such opportunities more comprehensively and long term. Not to mention that killing in cold blood isn’t something just anyone is capable of. Especially beta-looking Charlie.
But, because Charlie’s managed to dig up considerable dirt on Moore and Caleb, they have no choice but to assign an eye-rolling, head-shaking CIA operative named Henderson (Laurence Fishburne in a more minor, “Matrix”-like, Morpheus, mentor-type role) to escort Charlie to the gun range. Charlie can only hit targets from an amusing three feet away.
In the same way “Seinfeld’s” Jason Alexander recently related how his Boston University acting professor sat him down and told him that his 5-foot-6-inch, 25-pounds-overweight, balding self was never going to play “Hamlet,” Henderson attempts to tell Charlie why Charlie’s no killer. Charlie’s not listening.
Instead, he travels to London; Paris; Istanbul; Marseilles, France; and elsewhere on his relentless quest for revenge. He often checks in with an online source with the handle “Mr. Inquiline,” when researching spies and terrorists. Charlie constantly irritates this source by attempting to guess their identity and location. We assume they'll eventually meet up in the field.
MacGyver
The first bad guy Charlie takes out is a Parisian woman (French actress Barbara Probst) with asthma issues. Charlie purchases many bouquets of flowers, and MacGyvers a way to put the bouquet’s pollen into the ventilation system of the sealed container she’s in, at the asthma clinic she attends. Sure. Easy-peasy. Charlie needs her to give him the name of another of her cohorts. Hilariously, she starts beating the heck out of skinny Charlie with ease.
Malek
Summary: “The Amateur” attempts to mix “The Bourne Identity” with “Mission: Impossible,” but with a non-Bond, non-Bourne intel-nerd whose supreme intelligence makes up for his physical deficiencies and lack of a warrior personality. It’s Bourne-like in that, similar to Matt Damon’s amnesiac black ops agent who slowly discovers he has a phenomenal set of killer skills stored in his muscle memory and subconscious, Charlie starts figuring out that his big brain is up to the assassin task.
“The Amateur” has a first-rate cast, with Julianne Nicholson as the CIA’s newest head honcho, and Marthe Keller from the original film selling Charlie the bountiful bouquets of flowers. Former supermodel Caitriona Balfe plays another renegade spy who joins forces with Charlie, and Michael Stuhlbarg (“The Shape of Water,” “Call Me by Your Name”) is the mastermind behind the events that eventually lead to a ship on the high seas off Finland.
“The Amateur” would have benefited from not trying to be a dark, morose, Bourne-like film, but rather a slicker, faster, higher-tension, more fun, early-Bond type treatment. The franchise potential is definitely there though.
