The Amateur

⭐️⭐️

Sometimes, the review writes itself. It’s all in the title.

This 2025 action thriller is neither. Directed by James Hawes and written by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, the movie stars Oscar winner Rami Malek and Tony award winner Laurence Fishburn and should have been good. The Amateur is based on a novel by Robert Little, a prolific spy thriller author. Nolan adapted Little’s novel The Company, into a successful limited series. So it’s a surprise that this pairing was so off-putting with this collaboration.

The plot is strong enough: Malek’s character is a CIA analyst at the agency’s decryption and analysis division. He uncovers a plot to blame a US drone strike that killed his wife on terrorists. And in order to exact revenge for her death, Malek blackmails the CIA into training him (done so by Fishburn) in the art of field agent.

In the real world, Malek’s Charlie would have been disappeared as fast as Epstein, but in this world, the CIA trains him to be a better field agent than Fishburn, who begrudgingly comes to admire Malek’s remarkable skills.

Yeah. It’s kinda nuts and completely unbelievable. You keep thinking you know where the plot is going to go (a safe, been done before direction) only to be gum smacked by a plot twist that makes no logical sense and so is unpredictable ala “thrilling”?

Two out of five stars because I love Malek and Fishburn. But I give it two as begrudgingly as Fishburn’s admiration of Charlie.