The Amateur review: Spectacular set-pieces can't make up for a sub-standard script

Arguably, he’s never found anything quite as good as Mr Robot, the show about cyber hackers that first introduced us to him.

The Amateur, however, gives Malek the chance to play the unlikely hero. He is Charles Heller, a CIA cryptographer working at Langley, Virginia. He’s highly skilled at his work, but he’s no field operative. Until, that is, his wife Sarah (The Marvellous Mrs Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan) is murdered in a terrorist attack in London.

Left distraught, he wants the perpetrators brought to justice, but his CIA superiors are unwilling to commit manpower or act on the intelligence he swiftly gathers. Frustrated, he demands they train him in the ways of an assassin, so he can pull the trigger himself.

His reluctant bosses eventually acquiesce to his demands, hooking him up with Colonel Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne), who assesses Charlie’s skills (or lack of them). Not only is he a terrible shot, he doesn’t have the guts to pull the trigger face-to-face. But refusing to give up, Charlie goes rogue, escaping Henderson’s clutches and heading to Paris, where he sets about taking down the first of the four terrorists with an admittedly novel approach – plaguing the asthma-suffering baddie with pollen (no, really).

Unfortunately, as Charlie plays hit-man, bouncing from Paris to Madrid to Istanbul, it’s here where The Amateur starts to crumble. Quite apart from the morally dubious nature of his revenge mission, Malek’s character is sucked into an increasingly murky and mishandled plot that sees him uncover high-level conspiracy in the CIA involving secret Black Ops missions. Logic soon flies out the window, as support characters conveniently come-and-go (Jon Bernthal’s operative being the worst offender).

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British director James Hawes previously made the well-received true-life tearjerker One Life, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, but here can’t get a grip on the story. No doubt, the action scenes are excellent. Notably, when Charlie confronts one of the villains, who is using a glass-bottomed hotel pool, some sixteen storeys in the air, that spans the structure like a bridge. The sequence is an incredible one, worthy of inclusion in a Mission: Impossible movie. But a spectacular set-piece does not make up for a sub-standard script.

While Malek is talented enough to keep you engaged, despite the messy plot, he does have some help along the way.

Caitríona Balfe (Belfast) shows her range as a widow who comes to Charlie’s aid out in the field (and, like him, has endured the loss of a loved one). Plenty of other character actors, like Holt McCallany (Mindhunter), Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) and Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) also flash before your eyes.

But ultimately the film rests on Malek’s shoulders, and even he can’t help steer this patchy, problematic espionage story.

The Amateur is released in UK cinemas on Friday 11th April 2025.

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