The Amateur (2025)

James Hawes' The Amateur is one of those films in which you have your expectations matched to an absolute T. Hawes is the man behind the first season of Slow Horses (2022), so we know he's more than adept at churning out effective thrillers. And, this Rami Malek fronted espionage thriller is almost the dictionary definition of 'churning out another'.

Malek is Charlie Heller, a CIA code cracker whose life is turned upside down when his wife is murdered in an apparent terrorist attack in London. Understandably he wants answers, yet the CIA's repeated response is that they're doing their best and that Heller should go home and take as much time as he needs. So of course, he does the opposite; essentially blackmailing the agency into allowing him to train as a field agent, so he can go and do the job that the CIA refuse to do himself. Hunt down and kill the people responsible for his wife's murder.

If this feels familiar to the point where you simply stop reading, that's completely understandable. The Amateur offers almost nothing that you've not seen before; nor does it do anything particularly interesting or innovative. It even gives a largely pointless role to Laurence Fishburne, mainly it seems to remind us how good he still looks. The Amateur is, for all intents and purposes, Jason Bourne-lite.

However. What you bring to Hawes' film is what you get out of it. I saw the trailer and it just made me happy; it looked a like a solid world hopping espionage thriller with more than enough on offer to pass a couple of hours in happy escapism. That is exactly what I got out of it. It's well paced, slickly edited and Malek does a fine job of selling you someone who isn't entirely sure of himself in the field, and yet can get by with his code cracking history.

The Amateur does precisely what is says on the tin. If that's not what you want, this just isn't for you; and you'll find no argument from me if you suggest re-watching the Bourne franchise is better use of your time. My biggest frustration with watching it was the abysmal behaviour of the audience- two teenage girls wandered in about half an hour into the film armed with buckets of popcorn- talked for a further half an hour, then left. Then walked back in fifteen minutes later with more popcorn, in a truly baffling turn of events.

So it's to The Amateur's great credit that it still kept me entertained during this assault on my sanity. This is solid, trustworthy film making with some thoroughly enjoyable action sequences and anchored by a rather terrific turn from Rami Malek. You could certainly do better, but by Christ you could do a whole lot worse. A thumbs up from me. 7.3/10