‘The Amateur’ has all the clichés you can imagine, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing

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Synopsis

The Amateur follows Charles Heller (Rami Malek), a meek and intelligent CIA cryptographer whose wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a terrorist attack. When his superiors in the agency refuse to do anything to bring her killers to justice, Charles requests to be trained in combat so he can go after them himself.

To acquiesce him, Charles’ superiors enlist him in training under Col. Henderson (Laurence Fishburne), believing an amateur like him won’t be able to hack it. Charles does more than hack it, though, as he’s been playing the CIA all along, now using his newfound skills to go on a lone wolf mission to take Sarah’s killers down.

My thoughts

As these times are a changing, one key aspect of American culture seems to be on its way out: cable television. Ever since the advent of streaming, older, more traditional models of watching TV have struggled to keep up, particularly basic cable, which has kind of become a barren landscape of endless TV reruns and airings of movies that range from old to just old enough for those cable TV rights to be inked.

But there’s just something about those cable TV movies, you know? I’m not talking about movies made for TV, but movies that came out in theaters and then found their way to TNT, FX, or what have you to be played until seemingly the end of time. Basic cable is exactly where the passable and mediocre movies thrive. Sure, you have some classics like The Shawshank Redemption that are cable TV staples, but there are some movies that feel specifically crafted to be the perfect kind of disposable entertainment you’re seeking when nothing else is on.

Amateur hour

The script for The Amateur is pretty straightforward and boilerplate, with practically every single thriller, action, revenge, and spy movie cliché you can imagine as if the filmmakers were diligently checking off a list.

This is adapted from Robert Littell’s 1981 book of the same name, which already had a movie version made that same year. The original film and book had a Cold War angle, which is obviously missing here, instead giving us some generic terrorists to send our protagonist on a generic crusade.

Seriously, this is like the most cliché movie ever, but still, there is something charmingly old-fashioned about The Amateur. It may feel weird to refer to the 2000’s as “old-fashioned”, but hey, here we are two decades later with a movie with the exact vibe of movies from that era. If you’ve seen basically any movie ever made, you’re going to see elements of it somewhere here.

I’m a sucker for a good revenge flick, so I was all in on this movie’s setup with Charles Heller going on his quest for vengeance that goes beyond the people who killed his wife and all the way up to the corrupt CIA he’s working for. Unfortunately, there are a bit too many moving plot pieces and characters here to provide a satisfying revenge narrative, particularly in the antagonist department, but I suppose I respect the filmmakers for not going 100% all in on the clichés.

Since Charles doesn’t possess a killer instinct, it was kind of hilarious watching him grapple with not wanting to directly kill people by shooting them, but he’s perfectly fine with torturing people or killing them through less direct means. Sending somebody to their death by breaking their 20-story suspended swimming pool or torturing somebody with pollen to exploit their asthma allergy (the movie’s only novel idea) are pretty diabolical if you ask me. Seriously, it’s as if Jigsaw was a CIA agent with all this moral hemming and hawing.

Malek on a mission

This means that Charles has to rely more on his cunning intelligence rather than his physical attributes to achieve his goals. He’s one of those movie heroes who’s always 10 steps ahead of the bad guys, with a backup plan for pretty much anything. There aren’t many exciting action scenes, but the increasingly complicated ways Charles manages to evade the authorities provide constant entertainment, and you’ll be thinking, “Now, how is he going to get out of this one?”

The events are all pretty preposterous, and a suspension of one’s belief is certainly required for enjoyment here (I loved the CIA’s silly Batman tech), but director James Hawes and screenwriters Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli keep it clipping along at a brisk pace. They ride a fine line of taking the material just seriously enough for it to work. It’s not quite high art, it’s not quite schlock, nor is it all that stupid, or really all that intelligent: the very definition of middle of the road.

Rami Malek is suitable casting for this type of awkward character who forces himself to confront a darker side of his soul while still trying to keep that soul and the positive memories of his wife intact. Charles isn’t an action hero, so Malek’s trademark mannerisms with his ever-expressive eyes fit his character as “an amateur” perfectly. You could constantly see all the pain behind his gaze while, at the same time, constantly thinking about his next move.

The whole cast is quite good, although pretty much every side character only sticks around to serve their purpose to the plot, or apparently to just give an actor a paycheck, as I have no idea why Jon Bernthal was in this at all. I’ll always take more Jon Bernthal in anything I can get, and the same goes for actors like Rachel Brosnahan, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Laurence Fishburne. Still, aside from Malek, everybody here feels like an afterthought until the script requires them to pop up again suddenly.

Final verdict

This new version of The Amateur was first conceived back in 2006, so it’s honestly a bit of a shame it was delayed for so long, because it definitely feels 20 years too late. Even worse, who knows if cable channels like TNT will even be around anymore in three years for this to play on a lazy Sunday afternoon? If this had come out in ‘06/‘07 like it was originally supposed to, this would have thrived with middle aged dads all over America.

Thus, The Amateur feels like a relic of a bygone era, but it’s a relic with some retro charm to it. It’s a perfectly average, middle-of-the-road spy thriller that’s made and acted just competently enough to warrant staying on the channel if you happen to flip to it (yes, some people still do this). It’s passable entertainment, and when all you’re looking to do is pass the time as you take breaks from doing housework or something, sometimes passable is all you need.