The Amateur (2025)

Director: James Hawes

Starring: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Jon Bernthal

When his supervisors at the CIA refuse to take action after his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a decoder takes matters into his own hands.

We’ve been bombarded with vengeance movies lately. I enjoy a good vengeance movie, providing the revenge is justified and exacted only on those who deserve it (therefore definitely NOT any of the John Wick movies with its kill counts well into the hundreds!)

In ‘The Amateur’, Rami Malek stars as Charlie Heller, who works in Decryption Analysis for the CIA. When his wife Sarah is killed in a terrorist attack in London and the CIA refuses to intervene, Charlie takes matters into his own hands. Being the genius puzzle solver he is, Charlie utilizes surveillance cameras and advanced technology to identify the four terrorists.

Charlie discovers his Director, Alex Moore, to be a rogue agent, and blackmails him to give him special CIA training. Trained by Col. Robert Henderson, Charlie soon realizes he would never be able to kill someone at gunpoint. Instead, he decides to use his knowledge to his advantage. But now, Moore and Henderson are on his trail to eliminate ‘loose ends’.

Charlie meets Inquiline, whose husband worked for the KGB, but was killed. She continues to provide information to the CIA under a code name. They team up to bring the terrorists to justice. Unlike many cliched movies, this does not develop into a romance, which I found refreshing and more realistic.

The film dishes up a lot of information and it is so exciting that there’s hardly time to blink! A Good script and solid performances elevates ‘The Amateur’ above so many other vengeance movies. I did find some of his measures maybe a bit too extreme, but in general this is a believable and thoroughly entertaining action thriller.

‘The Amateur’ was a modest success, earning $96 million on a $60 million budget.

Would I watch it again? Yes.