Movie Review: The Amateur

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A surprisingly quite good action flick. 

In many ways The Amateur is your basic revenge-based action movie. A man hunting down the people who killed his wife, when it appears that the authorities won't do the job, is a typical action movie storyline. However, what makes this film stand out is to have the hero be far from your average action movie star. Our hero here is not an outwardly tough guy and has no experience in physical combat. What he does have though is a brilliant mind and a gift with technology. Because of this rather than your typical action scenes, we watch our main character get his revenge using technology and from a distance. This adds a fresh take to this often-used formula. The clever ways that he uses his gifts, also add a great sense of fun to this film, which leads to some excellent set pieces. Helping this is the casting of Rami Malek. In many ways, he is the last person that many might picture as an action star. This is what makes him perfect for the role here. You can completely understand why so many underestimate him and why he has to use his mind rather than his fists like most action stars. If a well-established action star was cast in this role, this movie would have lost most of its charm. 

 Even with the fresh touches with the main character, the story is so familiar in other ways that you know how it will end very early on. Because of this there are very few real surprises here. The movie also at times brings up the ethical implications of what our main character is doing. Yet these moments are often brushed aside and never truly explored to the point where anything is truly said. I personally would have preferred that these ideas were either given more time to be fleshed out or not included at all. Having ethical questions raised then brushed aside simply didn't work for me. 

Despite its flaws, this is a very fun action flick that manages to stand out from many similar movies.