THE AMATEUR (2025)
Tagline: Don't underestimate him.
(Spy, Action, Nerds) [PG-13]
I was overstating your chances to boost your confidence.
In this one, a man named Heller works for the CIA, and his wife ends up getting murdered with the cameras rolling after a robbery. When he goes to his superiors to request justice, but they essentially refuse to act. So he asks for training to go kill the assailants himself, but he sucks at the usual methods.
THE AMATEUR is not as slow a burn as BLACK BAG, but it does take its time to find its footing, and watching Heller stumble through even his more well-thought-out plans gets a little exhausting over time. This movie does have humor, but like an old house with creaking floors and faded wallpaper, it seemed to exhale a melancholy that clung to every corner. I actually fell asleep a couple of times, which is extremely rare for me (especially at a film I paid to see). I have a few different ways of looking at previews. The first way is just thinking to myself, "if those previews show up in the movie, it's pretty much going to be awesome." The second way is "if they just showed me every good part of this movie in the preview, I am going to be disappointed". This was the latter. There wasn't really anything interesting about this flick that we didn't get in the previews and that sucks, because I really was looking forward to this thing.
I have also decided I like Rami Malek way better as a bad guy. He's an awesome bad guy in NO TIME TO DIE, but he is lackluster and looks disinterested in this role as Heller. Laurence Fishburne is good in this as "Henderson," but nothing in this was a stretch for him. I did like Rachel Brosnahan as Sarah, but she gets so little screen time, it's like they might well have just put a pineapple in a chair and had Heller talk to that. The acting is all pretty solid, but no one had to get out of their comfort zone. We had a guy in this flick get told he was going to die, and his reaction is so nonchalant that a cardboard cutout of him would have displayed the exact same level of emotion.
There is a reason no one is talking about this flick, and it does stink, because the potential was all there. I mean, this could have been a nerdy take on THE EQUALIZER or something like that. Instead, what we got was just basically a movie that could have easily been an episode of a TV show. Also, in case you thought this might be original, it's not. This is a remake of the 1982 film also called "THE AMATEUR".
Sadly, there isn't a lot of great here. I have seen 17 movies that came out in 2025 as of April 15,2025, and this one landed at the 9 spot. From uninspired performances to a super drab color palette, I just couldn't give this one anything better than a 4 out of 7. I kind of wish they just had more than what we got in the previews. I feel like over time, BLACK BAG is going to age much better.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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