Richard Tobin investigates why The Amateur, a fresh-faced Espionage thriller brimming with talent, feels like one of the most generic releases so far this year.
The Amateur (2025) is an anomaly, the type of movie Hollywood usually doesn’t make anymore. A $60 million spy movie based on a relatively unknown spy character. While still being a reboot of a novel already adapted back in the 80s, the reality is most of the audience won’t be familiar with both the novel or the adaptation. There was a real opportunity to do something fresh with protagonist Charlie Heller and make him a unique spy character. Unfortunately the movie largely misses this opportunity, instead becoming a formulaic spy movie we’ve seen before.
The Amateur follows Charlie Heller (Rami Malek), a quiet CIA cryptographer thrust into a deadly game after his fiancée (Rachel Brosnahan) is murdered in a terrorist attack. When the agency refuses to act, Heller takes matters into his own hands, using his intelligence expertise to hunt down the killers across Europe. As he delves deeper into the shadowy world of espionage, he discovers a tangled web of betrayal, covert operations, and shifting loyalties. Untrained for fieldwork but driven by vengeance, Heller must outwit seasoned operatives and stay alive long enough to exact justice.
The main issue with this film is its characters. The film doesn’t care about its characters and gives the audience no reason to either. They are very flat and generic and feel like something done 10 times before in spy movies. What’s more, a lot of them feel very robotic, merely there to move the plot forward as opposed to real human beings. Most of Charlie’s CIA or terrorist adversaries are vehicles for exposition as opposed to real villains. The movie has no strong antagonist that forces Charlie to grow or change- instead nameless operatives are lurking in the background and come into focus whenever the plot needs them. Charlie’s fiancée fits the mold of a nameless damsel in distress - their relationship and his love for her feels shallow. Even with Charlie, they hint at him struggling with alcohol abuse after his fiancée passes away or seemingly being neurodivergent but again, these aspects are abandoned almost as quickly as they are introduced. Spy movies don’t have a responsibility to give a profound insight or be a deep exploration of the characters- most of the time they’re made to be a bit of entertainment and escapism. However, when the characters are as paper thin as they are in this movie it’s almost impossible to care about what’s at stake.
The screenplay as a whole needed a touch up. The pacing is very slow and the film takes too long to kick into gear. As already mentioned there are far too many scenes of exposition as opposed to giving the audience a chance to connect with the characters. The plot ambles around aimlessly then suddenly with about 20 minutes left, the plot is forced to speed up to finish off the movie. The dialogue, like a lot of the writing, feels very forced and unnatural. The movie doesn’t come to a natural conclusion. There’s a real lack of emotional stakes in the film which makes the uninspired, farfetched plot even more jarring.
The film’s style is also pretty bland. The movie’s visuals are pretty unappealing. The lighting is pretty weirdly lit and the colours are very muted in a greyish way. The shot composition is very standard; there isn’t really any unique framing or anything in the scenes. Instead the scenes unfold pretty much all in shot/reverse shot way and I’ve no issue with this generally but when it’s the only method chosen for two hours it gets pretty frustrating to watch.
The film was advertised as an IMAX spectacle but the reality is it feels like something destined to be watched by people on a plane.
The score is very forgettable- it doesn’t really add any tension or suspense. The advertising for the movie emphasised the action scenes a lot but in reality there’s very little- most of the movie is dialogue and conversation. I’ve no issue with this in theory but the action that is in the movie might as well not be, it’s very formulaic and predictable. One aspect of the film that worked well was the use of practical European locations. It made the world a bit more believable and felt a bit cooler even though they don’t do much with these locations bar a chase sequence in Istanbul.
The film’s exploration of corruption, politics and government agency conflict feels very surface level. Julianne Nicholson’s Director of the CIA doesn’t do anything to explore the film’s themes when she comes into opposition with Holt McCallany’s character- again just there to push the plot forward.
Equally, the film’s exploration of grief and loss feels very convoluted and forced- scenes like his mandatory therapy session make this really clear.
I thought the cast did a good job with what they were given. There’s a few big names like Malek and Fishburne that are somewhat charismatic at times despite their characters being very boring. They don’t have much chemistry with each other as an ensemble but there are some strong individual moments for the cast- with a better script I think they could really have done something.
This film was first developed in the 2000s with Hugh Jackman involved and it’s pretty clear this film is a recycled and repackaged attempt at that script. It feels like a product of a bygone Hollywood era that has had a perfunctory resurrection. This type of movie can actually be very entertaining and fun but The Amateur fails to execute on that promise. With the same budget this movie could still have turned out very differently- a touched up script could really have saved a lot of this film’s problems.
The film was advertised as an IMAX spectacle but the reality is it feels like something destined to be watched by people on a plane.