Ivan Radford | On 26, Jul 2025

Director: James Hawes
Cast: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitríona Balfe, Michael Stuhlbarg, Holt McCallany, Laurence Fishburne
Certificate: 15

“I mean, this is a joke, right?” That’s the reaction of Alex Moore (Holt McCallany), when Charles Heller (Rami Malek) shows up in his office. Charles’ demand? To train him up to avenge his wife’s murder. Why it’s funny? Charles is a nerdy cryptographer who wouldn’t know which way to point a gun, let alone how to use it. That unlikely starting point is both The Amateur’s best and worst quality.

The thriller, based on a 1981 novel Robert Littell, introduces us to Charles and his wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), before their routine existence is upended by her getting involved in a hostage situation. When the hostage-takers execute her, Charles spirals into grief, deciding that taking out his wife’s killers might help to fill the hole in his life. Despite a short training session with CIA veteran Henderson (Laurence Fishburne), his only real weapon is his brains – which makes his campaign of vengeance as implausible as it is unconventional.

Fishburne and McCallany are clearly having fun with supporting, slightly villainous parts they could play in their sleep, and Michael Stuhlbarg and Caitríona Balfe pop up to bring some grit and nuance to more ambiguous players in The Amateur’s shadowy games. But it’s Rami Malek’s show, and he plays it exactly how you’d expect – with a presence that’s deliberately eccentric but compelling. That means his fleeting romantic scenes with the always-excellent Brosnahan don’t quite ring true, but it does mean that the hollow silence that follows carries a pain that never lets him sit still. His facial tics are in overdrive when he’s trying to wait or carry on as normal, but settle into something more composed whenever he’s taking action to plot his attack.

The script – by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli – sometimes struggles to square the emotional sympathy we’re invited to have for our wounded hero’s cause with the need for him not to become an amoral killer, but there’s something quietly gripping in the film’s carefully indirect modus operandi. Director James Hawes leans into that approach to create something that’s knowingly understated and rooted in Charles’ brains more than his braun – it’s literally a thinking man’s thriller, and the film is at its best when finding surprising ways to turn low-key intelligence into subtle spectacle reminiscent of The Bourne Identity. One swimming pool sequence is particularly effective, and the more the film finds that unlikely groove the better it gets. Unlikely? Very much so. Entertaining? Undoubtedly.

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