The Amateur

It is respectful and smooth filmmaking that never loses sight of its one and only goal: keeping its audience hooked.

Yes, Charlie Heller (a brilliant Rami Malek) spends an appropriate amount of time dreaming up memories of his beautiful wife Sarah (an underutilized Rachel Brosnahan), but the screenplay by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli offers plenty more than the usual setup of a man hulking out over a woman's death.

James Hawes, who directed the entire first season of Slow Horses, clearly knows his way around the spy genre. Which is why this disjointed thriller about a brilliant CIA code cracker turned elite operative (Rami Malek) delivers at least some pacy thrills and globe-hopping intrigue, despite numerous issues with the screenplay, structure and casting.

Its baseline competence is perfectly watchable. It’s just hard to imagine anyone signing onto this project with the explicitly stated goal of only making it watchable.

It’s a promising premise—a nerdy CIA decoder (Rami Malek) turns unlikely action hero when his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is murdered by terrorists—but the movie promises more than it delivers in terms of suspense, escalating tension and a reason for being.

Malek’s icy performance does little to endear the viewer to Charlie, while his ultra-tactile relationship with his wife – presented in gauzy flashbacks – never feels entirely authentic.

Mr. Malek is incapable of providing the audience with an emotional hook.

I enjoyed this movie very. It’s just well made with good actors. I wanted to watch it to the end.

A morally dubious film with some decent acting. The direction is ok, but the storyline is average at best. Much of it has been dome several times before, and this film doesn't really add anything new. They left it as if there would be a sequel, which would be a mistake I think. It's definitely better tan average, but not sure I'd watch it again for quite a long time.

I love this movie I watched it it's really good it was really fun and it was a good action movie because it was such like intense and a thriller cause there were so many scenes that literally just have you like the pool literally scared my mom because she did not expect that to happen after seeing it in the trailer

Poor man's Enemy of the State and Bourne Identity. There were some interesting parts, but it failed to pull you in for most of the film. It could have been worse, but this is mid at best.

Very disappointing. Especially for Rami Malek fans. Could have been a smart thriller, but alas it is a lukewarm mess, and not even a sevicable in-flight entertainment flick for imbeciles: The cumbersome plot plods along horribly on its way into absurdistan, iand the contortionist attempts to relevance, the gratuitous violence that makes you hate the virtue signalling tropes even more add insult to injury. Add to all that some lazy anti-German, anti-South African racism with baddies from 1980s Hollywood, and you end up with this dog's breakfast.