The Amateur would have been an above par movie…for February
Mrs Average Dude and I were somewhat eagerly waiting for The Amateur to arrive at our local moviehaus. I say somewhat because, at least from the trailers, the premise was not horribly overused and the star seemed very believable in the roll. It’s worth noting that I have had to dramatically adjust my movie expectations downward over the past year or so. With that in mind, The Amateur was okay and even a little bit of a surprise.
Funny how a 110 lb girl can do it
The Amateur is the story of Charles Heller, a mid-high level tech genius for the US Government, who is driven into action when his wife is killed by terrorists half a world away. Mostly, Heller’s field of expertise is decryption. So, in a efficient bit of story, Heller’s bona fidas are established…he’s super smart. That is his power.
The writers of The Amateur are smart enough to realize that turning Malek into a full-fledged action star like John Wick would be stretching disbelief beyond its breaking point. Heller’s nerdy brain-power is believable. Unlike, say, Lioness. Or Charlie’s Angels. Or the children of Sucker Punch, which are totally unbelievable. And therein lies the hook. Like John McClane and Sarah Conner, tech-nerds needed a hero, too.
Oh, and along for the ride but mostly wasted are Lawrence Fishburne and Jon Bernthal (who is in just about everything these days and I’m here for it).
Rami Malek is the hero we never knew was possible
Of all the suspensions of disbelief we are called on to adopt when we step into the theater, maybe the most subtle one is this basic premise…nerdy tech genius focuses his grief and anger and channels it into revenge. The Average Dude has a lot of friends and among them are a number of nerdy tech geniuses. I have to say, I don’t think a single one of them would respond in the way that Charles Heller did in The Amateur. I also don’t know a single average dude that would strap on a fire hose and jump off the top of Nakatomi Plaza, but that’s beside the point.
Point is: these are one in a million guys who don’t know what they’re capable of until they are in the sh!t. And that’s every man’s fantasy.
Alpha Nerd
And I think that may have been the goal of The Amateur. Outside of Revenge of the Nerds, there really hasn’t been a techie star to stand toe to toe with the bad-guys lone wolf style. Someone called them the Alpha Nerds, and that’s really cool. Charles Heller is a much needed hero for the tech-nerd class. Maybe that was the whole thinking behind this movie.
Only the $$$ will tell
I loved how this movie didn’t try to make Charles Heller into the smartest guy in every room. Sure, he’s super smart…in his field. But putting him in the deadly world of spy-catching and globe-trotting, Heller was a fish out of water. He was out of his element, learning as he stumbled along. An helping of luck was necessary for him to keep living and that was not left out. In the end, Heller prevails (sort of). Will there be a second Heller adventure? Could they still call it The Amateur? I dunno. Only the box office will tell.
Passing grade
The Averaged Dude is giving The Amateur a passing grade of 3 out of 5 for decent story that didn’t make us throw logic too far out the window and providing a very emotionally relatable hero. Again, this would be totally overlooked if released in July. For April, it was good enough. Never going to be an annual watch. But they can’t all be Die Hard.
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