I was genuinely surprised how much I enjoyed The Amateur, which on the surface seemed like a disposable revenge thriller. I never even realized it was a remake of a 1981 movie, co-starring Christopher Plummer. If you look closer, the screenplay has so many nifty little conflicts and points of interest to further draw you in. Rami Malek plays a CIA analyst whose wife dies in a terrorist attack who takes it upon himself to seek vengeance the old fashioned way: with his bare hands. He wants to become a field agent and get retribution, and he’s willing to blackmail his superiors in order to get the approval. From there we have the bosses trying to uncover the leverage against them, there’s a handler trying to train our protagonist but also keep him contained or supervised, and then there’s our would-be amateur who struggles with more physical hand-to-hand fighting and gunplay but can think on his feet and is a whiz with technology, especially improvised explosives. He’s taking out his hit list and going up the chain while his co-workers are trying to sabotage him. There’s so many fun cross-purposes of conflict that keeps the movie entertaining even when it follows a more formulaic “oh what price this vengeance” path. I appreciated that the main character has flaws and vulnerabilities. He’s not great at certain vital aspects to being a field agent, but his determination and adaptability overcome those shortcomings. It makes for a fairly entertaining underdog story with many possible antagonists targeting around our lead. A lot of the supporting characters are pretty rote and the general plot is fairly predictable but it’s the ongoing conflicts and challenges, plus the brain vs. brawn underdog perspective that allow The Amateur to be enjoyable popcorn thrills.

Nate’s Grade: B