For a while we seemed to be stuck on “a particular set of skills” movies coming out of the success of taken. Then, John Wick ultimately took that and spun it into a slightly new aim. With that, they showed this expanded world, with shady organizations, and other like minded agents and assassins. just look at how much effort Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper went into expanding the lore of a film, without knowing if a sequel would come. A sequel is coming, and a sequel might come for the Amateur as well.

the Amateur feels like it is a larger scale film than it actually is. rami Malek plays a CIA agent who loses his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) to a terrorist cell in a hostage situation. He does all the leg work, as he’s a computer tech who can do anything with a keyboard. But even after he pinpoints everyone responsible, his own organization, and his boss (Holt McCallany) won’t send anyone to avenge his wife. Instead, he blackmails his bosses, and gets them to agree to train him so he can go kill his targets. This leads to him picking up a mentor (Laurence Fishburne), who points out that our guy can’t fire a gun to save his life, so he’ll have to find other ways to achieve his goals. He’s truly comically awful in the gun range.

From there, he targets them one by one, eventually using the help of a long time internet hacker friend (Caitrona Balfe), who knows the pain of losing a loved one. Those aren’t even all the recognizable faces. Jon Bernthal, Julianne Nicholson, and Michael Stuhlbarg all pop up in the film. This is a stacked production, almost unnecessarily so, but it clearly wants to do another. it ends in the kind of fashion that begs the studio for a sequel, and the audience to anticipate a follow up.

It is technically both an adaptation and a remake, as there was a book, and this has previously been adapted in the 80’s. what worked for me is Malek, who plays a computer nerd only. he’s not the guy who runs and guns, he’s the guy who uses tech to pull off elaborate traps. Since Malek rose to prominence on Mr. Robot, this seems like no brainer casting. I can’t fathom why Rachel Brosnahan is in such a thankless role, but the rest of the cast at least has something to do, even if very minor.

Malek’s character does seem to have no regard for collateral damage, which makes him a bit of a hard hero to follow, but the fact that he’s not supposed to be a field agent makes him still feel somehow unique. It takes a little of what Novocaine tried to tap into this year by having a hero without the right skills to pull off the task at hand, having to find another way. I liked the score, and the sound design, though neither were spectacular. You’ll likely find the film stretching itself at times in terms of that suspension of disbelief, but most films of this ilk have elements of that. They typically come in the form of characters who sustain unrealistic damage,but here, it is just questionable life choices. Without ruining anything specific, Michael Stuhlbarg’s character in particular has a sequence that makes no sense.

I enjoyed this. Overall, it was well acted, well paced, and most of the action was strong. It had emotional weight in it, even from supporting cast, and somehow crammed in extra characters for The Amateur Chapter 2.

The audio description had a lot to work with in these action set pieces, and I think it gave us as much as it could. I didn’t have any specific concerns, and thought it handled the action centric parts as well as could be. I believe this was Deluxe.

this year I’ve already seen Novocaine and A Working Man that both feel adjacent to this, and I liked this the most. It was nearly on par with Ballerina,though that has some truly impressive stunt work

.Fresh: 8.1/10