THE AMATEUR (2025)

THE AMATEUR (2025) 

Rated PG-13 - Rottentomatoes freshness score 61% (87% popcornmeter), IMDB 6.5/10

Synopsis:

Charlie Heller is a top cybersecurity and cryptography expert at the CIA.  His wife and he have a happy life, but that shatters when she is killed during a terrorist attack in London.  With his access to classified information, he is able to locate each member of the terrorist cell who killed his wife.  When he shares this information with his superiors at the CIA, it becomes clear that they are not going to take any action to bring the terrorists to justice.  At this point, Heller finds information incriminating his superiors and he uses this information to blackmail them into training him so he can kill the terrorists himself. 

Thoughts:

I think that the Rottentomatoes rating is about right.  I would probably have gone a little higher though, to 6.5 or maybe 7/10.

Oscar award winner Rami Malek and Oscar award nominee Laurence Fishburn headline this remake of The Amateur (1981).  The storyline is quite similar, though much more high tech than the 1981 version - not hard to do.  Malek was well-cast for his role, because we are supposed to underestimate him and his capacity for personal violence.  So, why the lukewarm rating?  Maybe it's the lack of a fresh look at the material from the original. 

I found the interactions between Heller and his CIA training officer (Fishburn) to be compelling and, frankly, scary!  The final twist in the story was clever and inventive, and put a nice capper on the tale.

Though not destined to become a classic in any way, it was still engaging enough to enjoy in the theater and to add to my collection.