Revenge stories are as old as stories themselves. What is Moses and Rameses if not a revenge story, after all? There is something primal about the pursuit of justice on your own terms, and cinema has a long history of revenge being taken. From Death Wish to Taken, and now The Amateur.
The Amateur follows a basic set up, CIA analyst Charlie (Rami Malek) finds himself at odds with his employers when his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a hostage situation in London. The Agency don't plan on taking the guys responsible out despite links to terrorism, instead opting to look at the wider network but Charlie, despite having no formal training, decides to take on those who killed his wife.
What James Hawes' film does right is cast someone like Rami Malek. Despite the actor's voice never really going beyond the monotone demeanour he made his name in Mr Robot with, Malek looks like a computer nerd. It's the correct path to go instead of say an 80s action star donning a pair of glasses to convince audiences he's not a steroid-induced body builder waiting to be cut loose. Malek makes Charlie an affable if introverted guy that you believe has never even held a gun.
For the most part Hawes builds up the quiet building rage that Charlie has, his film has the same understated feel that his previous effort, biographical drama One Life, had. It's not a film that goes full throttle from the start instead opting to build up anticipation before unleashing it's action set pieces. Hawes populates the film with good support, Laurence Fishburne is his usual dependable self as the soldier-type that tries to turn Charlie into a killer, Holt McCallany is the gruff CIA superior, Julianne Nicholson the director of the CIA. But really the best support that Malek gets is from Caitriona Balfe as a Russian hacker who aids him in his mission.
Once the revenge starts happening the film poses a very simple question: what if Jason Bourne was a specky nerd instead of a fisticuffs type. The running and car chases feel like they're from the Bourne playbook, and work well, particularly Paris set foot chases and a Turkish beach side car chase. When it comes to the revenge the sequences feel like they're from a slightly higher calibre Saw film. A woman trapped in a glass booth filling with pollen, a guy forced to hold the lid of a box filled with explosives, the trailer-centric roof-top pool sequence. They're fun, if a little stretching the boundaries of believability.
The film works best in it's quieter moments. Two people, alone in the world, holding each other while they sleep. A glance between someone telling an obvious lie and their suspicious superior. Literally any time Fishburne glares at someone.
The real issue is the pacing, the film takes so long building up to the revenge and the process in which Charlie discovers and dispatches that by the time it gets to it's big finale it feels like you've been binge watching a miniseries instead of a pulse pounding action thriller. Hawes has a history of television work and despite the stylish direction, his sense of pace feels better suited to that medium.
As it stands, The Amateur isn't awful, nor is it a success. It feels like a film that wants to make some pointed comments about US foreign policy as well as being a fun thriller but it lacks to socio-political bite to rival the high water mark of The Bourne Ultimatum, instead settling into a semi-serious chase film that, on occasion, shows a wit the rest of the film sadly can't keep up with.
The Amateur is in cinemas from April 11th
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