I enjoy a good revenge movie. A story of someone minding their own business and just living their quiet little life and being thrown way out of their comfort zone to avenge a grievous wrong. If that revenge movie is also smart and has depth in the relationship that is at the center of this need for revenge, then you have a winner. And that is precisely what you have in The Amateur.
This is only the second feature film for its director, James Hawes, better known for his vast TV work. But he does a great job telling this story. It doesn’t hurt that his lead is Oscar-winner Rami Malek, who brings a great sense of gravity to his portrayal of Heller, a brilliant but profoundly introverted decoder for the CIA working out of a dark office at headquarters in Langley.
He has an IQ of 170 and a beautiful wife named Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan). She is someone who understands his beautiful mind and loves him completely. When someone as intelligent and introverted as Heller finds love, it is their entire world. So when she is killed by terrorists on a business trip to London, Heller is beyond grief. His whole world has crumbled around him.
Heller goes rogue when his supervisors refuse to take action on the four people he has identified as the suspects because they want the whole syndicate they work for and not just them. He manages to extort the person in charge, Schiller (Michael Stuhlbarg), to give him formal field training on how to kill. His teacher, Colonel Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) makes the mistake of underestimating Heller.
In his quest for justice, Heller is thrown into a world of covert operations, international crime, and hanging on to his sanity and soul as he seeks vengeance and tracks down those responsible for taking Sarah away from his perfect, quiet life.
The Amateur did a good thing in adding emotional depth to the high-stakes action. Most revenge films just take for granted that the person killed was loved. But in this film, they show why. Heller’s wife appears to him throughout the film, either in memories or as a phantom, watching over him as she did in life. By doing this, the film made the relationship real and deep, making her loss all the more devastating for him. Also, I liked all the techie coding details of this film and Heller’s life. It had shades of novels by Tom Clancy that were meticulous in their detail of espionage hardware, military technology, and procedures. The Amateur is based on the book of the same name by Robert Littell. He is a former journalist and a well-known novelist who resides in France. I truly enjoyed his story of the Revenge of the New Cyber Nerds.
I give The Amateur 4 stars. It’s a lot of fun to watch in IMAX. The ending leaves open the possibility of Mr. Heller being called upon to use his newfound set of skills and his superior mind to help the CIA in the future. One can only hope.
Directed by: James Hawes
Written by: Ken Nolan, Gary Spinelli, Robert Littell
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 2h 3min
Spy/ Action/ Thriller
Wide Release: In Theaters and IMAX April 11th
Starring: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Jon Bernthal, Laurence Fishburne. Julianne Nicholson
The Selig Rating Scale:
5 Stars – Excellent movie, well worth the price.
4 Stars – Good movie
3 Stars – OK movie
2 Stars – No need to rush. Save it for a rainy day.
1 Star – Good that I saw it on the big screen but wish I hadn’t paid for it.
