150 Word Review: 'The Amateur' (2025)
Dork. James Dork
Clichés are like steroids: they juice flabby plots. Case in point: the charming Rachel Brosnahan's handful of thankless scenes as the popular old plot device, The Perfect Wife Who Gets Murdered in The Amateur. Oscar-winner Rami Malek is her husband, a socially awkward CIA nerd who is transformed by his wife's sudden death into a socially awkward angel of vengeance.
James Hawes directs with skill but without inspiration. The problem with The Amateur isn't the paint-by-numbers power fantasy; it's that there's not enough carnage. Laurence Fishburne lends his massive charisma as a secret agent mentor. Luckily, Malek's dweeb is a fast learner. Malek's Charles Heller is underestimated at every turn, but the guy's a natural bomb maker and death trap maker. There's one excellent set piece set atop a glass pool that spans two skyscrapers. But the rest of the movie crawls when Malek egghead isn't blowing up bad guys.
I wanted to like it so much. Truly incredible cast in possibly the dumbest movie I've seen in some time. I thought it would have been more fun as a black comedy, leaning more into the silliness of the premise. I think if Brosnahan was the lead, with her Maisel comedy chops, and Malek the unfortunate husband, we could have had something bleakly hilarious.