'The Amateur' review: Rami Malek stars in tech-centric, dour thriller

"You’re just not a killer, Charlie," Col. Henderson tells his latest trainee in "The Amateur." Henderson is played by the commanding Laurence Fishburne, so when he speaks you tend to listen. And Charlie Heller is played by Rami Malek, who despite winning an Oscar as Freddie Mercury in "Bohemian Rhapsody" does not cut the most aggressive figure. Ah, but Henderson is wrong. Little Charlie can’t throw a punch or pull a trigger, but give him a keyboard and an internet connection and he will send you to your doom.

That’s the hook in "The Amateur," a reasonably engaging if slightly morose thriller. Originally a 1981 novel by Robert Littell (and adapted into a movie that year), the story dates back to the Cold War era, before Wi-Fi, smartphones or laptops. The new version, however, is driven almost entirely by those inventions, plus drones and surveillance networks and facial scanners (and, quaintly, a CD). All the ultrahigh tech is (generally) convincing and employed in (mostly) clever ways. It’s the human components in this movie that don’t quite work.

Malek’s Charlie is a socially awkward data cruncher who’ll clearly never be a swaggering 007 type. But when his wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), is murdered during a terrorist attack in London, Charlie demands to go into the field and find the killers himself. The whole idea cracks up Director Moore (Holt McCallany), who sneers, "Anything else? An Aston Martin?" Charlie, however, is playing the proverbial four-dimensional chess, and in short order he vanishes with a stack of cash and several agency-issued passports.

So far, so fun, but here’s where "The Amateur" hits a glitch. Charlie develops an unsettling habit of catching his prey at vulnerable moments — say, a doctor’s office or a deserted swimming pool — before snuffing them out. The screenplay, by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, tells us almost nothing about the bad guys, so there’s no delicious irony or poetic justice in their deaths. (Only Michael Stuhlbarg, as the ringleader Schiller, gets to say more than a few words.) Between the summary executions, director James Hawes does his best to entertain us with a decent chase sequence or two.

Malek slips easily back into the oddball persona he perfected in "Mr. Robot." But Charlie simply isn’t likable. The best vengeance-seeking heroes are driven by either blazing rage (think Mel Gibson) or stone-cold brutality (think Clint Eastwood in his Western period). Charlie seems driven by an off-putting mixture of grief and expediency. Odd as it sounds, "The Amateur" might have fared better had its hero taken a little more joy in his work.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com