REVIEW: The Amateur

After playing a villain in an action spy thriller, Rami Malek jumps on the other side of the fence in The Amateur, where he gets to play an everyday geek man seeking to avenge his wife.

So I had really no expectations coming into The Amateur. The trailers looked fine, but they didn’t do much for me. In fact, when the reviews came in and I saw all the lukewarm positive reception, I was pretty surprised, as I was expecting the worst.

And yeah, I mean, this was good. It ain’t special, nor do I think that was its intention. It sticks to a lot of the conventions, but we got Rami, like I said and the title explicitly tells us he’s a tech-savvy amateur in the field of action who has to use his skills and will to get the work done. He’s good in the role and while I still have a lot of problems with him seemingly being unable to show much range and emotion both in dialogue and his physicality, he was okay and if they ever make more of this, I might be down. He gets to train with Fishburne, who doesn’t only deliver a good performance but he’s so great at his work he gets to apparently turn newbies into above-good agents. He’s also like a cat; the dude has so many lives. But yeah, the interactions between him and Malek were some of the best and I wished we got either more of Laurence and/or more of the two together. Echoing what everyone has said now, but I am not sure why they hired Bernthal if you were just going to have him do a minute-long or so cameo; that was so bizarre.

The action is really well shot, from the few fights in the building and the hospital. I would have loved for the bad guys to pose more of a threat; Heller just had it too easy for me. For a thriller, too, it could have used more thrills.

All in all, a solid action thriller that could have used more action and thrills, but despite its shortcomings, it could make for an easy watch any Sunday afternoon.