The Movie: The Amateur
The Director: James Hawes
The Cast: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitríona Balfe, Jon Bernthal, Michael Stuhlbarg, Laurence Fishburne
The Story: When his supervisors at the CIA refuse to take action after his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a decoder takes matters into his own hands.
The Rating: 6 / 10
The Review:
This is one of those movies where going in, I didn't have much of an expectation because it really doesn't look like there's much to expect and also not anything we haven't already seen before. I have to admit also that I'm not a huge Rami Malek fan but still, there was enough here that I was willing to give it a chance. Director James Hawes has done a lot of great work on different Tv shows and really, that's what this movie feels like just with a bigger budget to accomodate some global travelling.
Malek was good enough in the role he plays and most of the rest of the cast is pretty solid. The sad thing for me was that I felt like Rachel Brosnahan and Jon Bernthal gave the most entertaining performances and they were also on screen the least amount of time. I mean, seriously, give me a whole movie of Bernthal's character and I'd be all over it. Laurence Fishburne was sort of like an older, retired version of Morpheus although not nearly as obsessed with his protoge being the chocen one. Quite the opposite actually. Either way, he didn't really bring much to the table other than being Laurence Fishburne which is always pretty cool.
It's also important to know that this movie is a remake of a 1981 film that is also based off of a novel that was published that same year. The movie definitely feels like a spy thriller from the 70's or 80's just with some modern technology updates added in. Malek's character does do some pretty cool things to outsmart all the bad guys and other spy type people although any time he's in a face to face situation, the action becomes totally unbelievable and I was just left shaking my head at how each of those moments turn out. I mean, he gets into a fight he should easily lose and then the other person runs into the street and immediately gets hit and killed by a van that was, for some reason, going really fast through a busy intersection.
Anyway. The movie is okay although definitely not a must watch on the big screen. Our screening was allegedly in an IMAX format although I didn't notice anything that stood out in anyway way so just wait until this one eventually hits a streaming platform and put it on while you're also doing other things. It's that type of movie.
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