With the heights that the James Bond and Mission: Impossible film franchises have reached in the past decade or two, the spy thriller movie is an uphill battle for everyone else.
Now that isn’t to say there haven’t been some fun adventures that have come out of the genre when going in a different direction from the two biggest in town — Guy Ritchie’s “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” adaptation was quite charming, and comedies like “Burn After Reading” have a great time poking fun at the genre’s self-serious approach.
What a lot of these have in common is being remnants of the Cold War spy thrillers from the 1950s and ’60s, which is where these movies thrive. But transplanting a story from the era to the modern day without having any new take on it is what leads to movies like “The Amateur,” a perfectly competent and serviceable movie that, while fun, is also totally disposable.
Thankfully, what it lacks in originality or staying power, it more than makes up for in being a great example of something moviegoers don’t see as much as they used to: the mid-budget adult drama. While most theaters are playing either giant tentpole movies based on comic books and video games or super low-budget horror movies that can easily recoup their $5 million, seeing a movie for grown-ups in a packed theater on a Sunday afternoon is encouraging to see.
The film follows Charlie Heller (played by Rami Malek), a brilliant CIA decoder whose world comes crashing down when his wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), dies in a London terrorist attack. Fueled by a desire to see the people responsible dead, Charlie uses his expertise and the tech available to him to identify the culprits and track them down.
But when his supervisors refuse to take action, Charlie takes matters into his own hands, receiving field training from Col. Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) at Camp Peary. With his intelligence as the ultimate weapon, Charlie embarks on a dangerous trek across the globe to track down those responsible.
Based on a 1981 novel, the clichéd Cold War tropes are all over this movie. Yes, updating it to 2024 means the technology is a lot more advanced, but the basic plot beats Charlie’s journey goes through are of no surprise with each passing scene. Granted, they are all handled perfectly fine by director James Hawes and his crew, but there are no edge-of-your-seat shootouts or death-defying stunts.
Where the film does succeed and even excel in places is the performances. Malek, arguably best known for his role as another techy guy out for revenge in “Mr. Robot,” works perfectly here. Little things about Charlie early on set up how out of his element he is out in the field, but when he’s able to use his intelligence and technology to pull off tricks and traps on the people he’s tracking down, Malek looks and feels quite scary for this average desk worker.
Now, the people in Charlie’s life never seem to stay very long, despite giving great performances. Brosnahan is in all of 10 minutes before her character is killed, and while she does have a great presence and does pop back up in flashbacks and dream sequences, she’s not really there. And Jon Bernthal plays a field agent who is one of Charlie’s friends and shows up for one minute in the beginning and three minutes in the third act. Again, he’s great, but underutilized.
Anytime things start heating up and getting exciting in Paris or Istanbul or wherever Charlie goes next, the movie abruptly cuts back to Washington, D.C. and a subplot regarding Charlie’s superior trying to cover up his involvement while the CIA director tries to figure out what’s going on, grinding any momentum to a halt.
Maybe in the book, these people and this plot were a lot bigger and better, but in this two-hour movie, they’re just a waste of time. Each 15-minute sequence feels like it could have been an episode of TV in an eight-part miniseries, and I think could have worked a lot better. As much as we need movies like these in theaters, this probably won’t be the one to do it.