Directed by James Hawes | Written by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, based on the novel by Robert Littell | 123 min | ▲▲▲
You could go looking for the first movie adaptation of the Robert Littell novel, but it’s tough to find — a Canadian thriller produced by Garth Drabinksy starring John Savage, Christopher Plummer, and Marthe Keller, with Nicholas Campbell as a German terrorist and Ed Lauter as a cravat-wearing agent instructor. I’ve seen it and I can tell you it has plot holes wider than the Grand Canyon, some dubious directorial choices, but a serviceable use of international locations and that watchable cast. It’s also got a strangely chucklesome script, though some of that could’ve been unintentional.
There are things to enjoy in the story of Charles Heller. He’s a CIA analyst who blackmails his employer to make him a field agent so he can seek revenge on the terrorists who killed his girlfriend. The question of whether his grief and rage will actually drive him to murder is at the heart of this thing. Let’s say they don’t linger too long on the ethics of taking bad people’s lives and Heller is entirely capable.
What was a dime-a-dozen spy thriller entry 43 years ago is now a rare big-budget thriller standing out in a cinematic landscape of video game adaptations and animated fare, landing somewhere between The Bourne Identity and The Accountant, complete with that slippery granite wash in the production values colouring the many international locales. The fact that the cold war is once again relevant helps provide context, though the clown show that is the American administration tends to undercut suggestions of competence amongst the people concerned about international security.
The question of whether our cryptographer has the nature of a killer is given a little more time here. Rami Malek’s unusual physicality as Heller undercuts some of the more familiar espionage thriller conventions. However, the cliches and overall silliness tend to ride roughshod over any originality, if not over a broad entertainment value.
Malek brings a whole lot of awkward. He’s so peculiar and self-conscious — witness the weird scene where he runs alongside his wife Sarah’s (Rachel Brosnahan) departing car — it delivers an extra level of jeopardy when he threatens to reveal his spymasters’ black ops after her violent death. Nobody’s threatened by him, especially when this nerdy dude forces his bosses to give him field agent training with company tough-guy, Henderson (Laurence Fishburne).
Even if he can’t shoot worth a damn, Heller’s tech skills extend from software to hardware, allowing him to find creative ways to both dispatch the terrorists he wants dead and travel huge distances, hopping around Europe and barely needing any help. Only one of contacts (Caitríona Balfe with a Russian accent) becomes his Woman In The Chair for a murder mission. (Nice to see Marthe Keller cameo as a Parisienne flower seller. )
Director Hawes is responsible for the excellent first season of Slow Horses, so he knows his way around the spy genre. He applies a number of conventions to enjoy, even as you may roll your eyes in places where Heller’s unearthly tech gifts allow him to outsmart everyone around him. That said, I chuckled audibly in the screening room when he used a YouTube video to help him pick a lock with a pair of paper clips in about 10 seconds, as I did when he somehow found passage in the back of a truck full of refugees, and those are far from the most implausible things we’re expected to swallow.
Can anyone explain what Jon Bernthal is doing in this movie? He literally has two scenes, the second suggesting he’ll have a role to play in the finale, but then he just vanishes. There’s got to be a different cut of this movie out there that explains the presence of a guy with his talent because otherwise it’s a huge waste.
Another big problem with this material —it could easily be called Fridging: The Movie.
The Amateur doesn’t hold up to any kind of genuine analysis, but it nevertheless keeps the interest thanks to a robust locations budget and the commitment of quality players like Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, Danny Sapani, Adrian Martinez, and Michael Stuhlbarg. They may be slumming with this script but their presence gives the nonsense a credibility it wouldn’t have otherwise, and that helps carry the day for the undemanding genre fan.
