Grief is the greatest trajectory changer in humans.  An overbearing emotion that can make people hit the pause button on their life, or motivate them to be open to new adventures. Charles Heller, played marvelously by Rami Malek, is motivated by grief over the murder of his wife. So much so, he is willing to get out of his comfort zone and seek revenge. Charles is going to it with no real spy training or no killer instinct, instead solely relying on his great intellect, a little help with a friend, and access to cool spy software to become a  Desk jockey vigilante.

Written by Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) and Directed by James Hawes ( One Life) The Amateur is in the ballpark aesthetic of a Jason Bourne or James Bond spy film. Charles’ character is even treated as such. At no time during this that I felt Charles was ever in any danger. Even when he is traveling in foreign countries for the first time, or when he is being chased by bad guys, or even when he is blackmailing his C.I.A supervisors in exchange for some training for his self- anointed revenge mission. A key feature that made me think they should have changed the name of the film to “The Unprofessional”, rather than staying with “The Amateur”.  

In this Charles is not just gifted with smarts, it’s superhuman smarts, and lots of conveniences of material accessibilities that aren’t really explained.  Like, how did you acquire all your bombing making materials in France when you don’t speak french? The Amatueur is actually more compelling with the subplot focus of the politics of espionage then the revenge arch. There is a great dynamic play with Holt McCallany being the deputy director Alex Moore, and Juliancne Nicholson as Samatha O’Brien, the CIA head. There is also a massive lost opportunity for more screen time, and development of Jon Bernthal’s character in this. His few minutes in this needed to be a ton more. 

Carefully crafted with a good-eyed camera, with rich sets and being on location does greatly serve the film, but the dragging pacing and no real viable threat made to our protagonist leads to a ho-hum experience.  The Amateur wants to be a film that tells us that brains will suffice over brawn, and grief is the great catalyst to superhuman abilities, but with Charles never really facing any consequence. We get his suffering, we get his drive, what  we don’t get is the weight . A revenge story with no danger or consequence to Charles is a great omission in the writing which makes me think unrefined rather than amateur.  5.5/10