The Amateur: a post-brush post-bar spying thriller (Critique)

James Hawes recycles the codes of the spy film, with a rami malek a little too dull in an analyst Cia party avenge the assassination of his wife.

The amateur Fits in the line of post-bar spying thrillers, claiming to revisit the genre via an original angle. This time, it is a question of transforming a library rat into a killing machine. Rami Malek Plays Charles Heller, CIA analyst with a pale complexion and a famelic silhouette, avenger propelled when his wife is murdered in London. The bureaucrat analyst decides to blackmail his superiors to obtain an express assassin training.

The idea is tasty – an office employee discovering blood drunkenness – but James Hawes Saborde with a staging as inspired as an administrative memo. Malek tries to ward off the ghost of Jason Bourne, but his neurasthenic game borders on the catatonic. His character goes too brutally from the pathetic novice to the methodical killer, without this metamorphosis being never credible or captivating. Moreover, the film advances in jolts and if some sequences stand out of the lot-an execution in a swimming pool suspended between two towers-they are rare, like the smiles of the protagonist. And the look of the film is in its image: dull or even gloomy.

If the reinforcement cast is impressive on paper, it finds itself sacrificed on the altar of an always disappointing scenario: Laurence Fishburne Map some replicas of disillusioned instructor, Rachel Brosnahan haunts the screen in a ghostly wife, and Jon Bernthal makes three too brief appearances.

What remains of this thriller, oscillating between mourning (a tragic touch welcome to entertainment) and political (questions of government responsibility are touched)? Not much. The amateur is not spectacular enough to compete with the big names of the genre, nor deep enough. This mission, like many secret operations, might have done better to stay in the drawers.

By James Hawes. With Rami Malek, Laurence Fishburne, Rachel Brosnahan … Duration: 2h03. Released April 9, 2025