After reading at least a dozen Jack Reacher novels, I find myself stirred by the refreshing idea of a vigilante who 1) couldn’t beat up your grandmother and 2) has all the aim of a drunken stormtrooper. And that is the physical skill story of our Count-of-Monte-Cristo-for-the-week, The Amateur.
Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) is a CIA cryptographer, which is a very nice way of saying, “NERD!” He operates as strictly a “behind-the-scenes” guy, a professional who collects and interprets data so that professional persons of action can take advantage of it. Nerd or not, he’s very good at his role and his understanding of where he is on the scale of active enforcers from James Bond to a set of encyclopedias.
And then his wife died.
Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) was in London on business when she intersected with terrorists. London is a pretty bold place to do terror as it owns and employs more video cameras than any other city on the planet (i.e. you commit crimes in London, you will be identified, bare minimum). The latter is exactly what happens – Charlie is able to ID the four terrorists responsible for his wife’ death. He takes this information to his superiors, and when rebuked, he blackmails them, which seems a novel approach for a CIA nerd. All Charlie wants is the opportunity for vengeance. He wants to be trained in combat, arms, and tactics like a normal CIA field operative. This is where his “trainer” -for lack of a better word- Colonel Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) comes into play. Every Rocky needs a Mick, y’know?
I think Charlie, The Amateur, vastly underestimates the amount of training it takes to make a CIA field operative, but -heck- that’s par for the course in the days of “I did my own research, so I’m an 
expert.” The fact that the movie admits he’s an amateur and gives him an amateur skill set has to be seen as a positive. There’s a level of refreshing modesty in the title alone. I think what we all discount is the amount of collateral damage when revenge of this nature is sought. We just kind of accept that peripheral gun-toting people are going to die in situations like these because, hey, it’s the price of revenge.
The Amateur is top five on the list of original 2025 films that will likely have sequels. The question is what such a sequel would look like: the film works while we accept Charlie as a bookish assassin, so do we assume he wouldn’t get any better at the James Bond stuff between now and then? That doesn’t really fit his “I want to know more” personality. And will we exploit his desire to pilot puddle-jumpers in the next film? Not sure about either of these things. I will say that I liked this character and story enough to want to see Charlie again, which sometimes is as much praise as you get from me.
A CIA operative named Heller
Worked far behind the scenes there, feller
Then his wife got killed
And though Heller, unskilled
Made several points about not being yeller
Rated PG-13, 123 Minutes
Director: James Hawes
Writer: Ken Nolan, Gary Spinelli, Robert Littell
Genre: Revenge of the Nerds
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Nerds!
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Bullies
