image from Rotten Tomatoes
Hello everyone! I saw The Amateur starring Rami Malek on Disney+ this weekend. It's a nifty revenge story about a nerdy computer guy working for the CIA who lost his wife to terrorist attack.
Plot
Charlie Heller is a nerdy computer guy working for the CIA as a decoder. One day, his wife was killed in a terrorist attack. He identifies his wife's killer and the group behind them and asks the CIA for justice. However, the CIA was unwilling to apprehend the perpetrators since they are after "bigger game". Charlie decides to go John Wick on his wife's killer and dispense justice himself. How? He blackmails the CIA with some secrets he uncovered not to send the terrorist to heaven but to train him to be able to do it himself.
Cast
image from imdb
There are lot of familiar faces in the cast who I've seen on movies and TV series before.
Rami Malek
The nerdy guy turned John Wick. He can't kill with a gun but he's handy with other stuff. He can Macgyver things to create bombs and use pollen from flowers to poison his victims.
Lawrence Fishburne
He plays yoda to NEO Charlie and taught him the basics of being a CIA field agent.
Rachel Brosnahan
New Lois Lane plays Charlie's wife who got murdered by terrorists.
Jon Bernthal
The Punisher is Charlie's field agent friend in the CIA who helps him later on in the movie.
Holt McCallany
This guy is familiar from the Mindhunter series on Netflix. He plays a CIA supervisor who has some dirty secrets.
My Take on the Movie
The movie is a familiar revenge plot. In fact, it's pretty similar to American Assassin (2017) wherein an inexperienced guy suffers a loss from terrorists and decides he's the next John Wick. Malek is a good actor and he displays grief convincingly. However, you have to suspend your disbelief, grab your popcorn and just enjoy the movie to believe that an inexperienced guy, after only weeks of training was able to evade a veteran CIA agent in the streets of Paris. There was a funny scene where he was picking a lock while watching a youtube video on how to do it, lol. Ok, you're showing he's an amateur but it could have been executed better. Why not show him practicing at home first and failing many times before he was able to master it? It would have been more convincing that way. Anyway, this was a new movie on Disney+ and it has its fun moments. Grab your favorite movie snack and watch it if you have nothing better to do.