Director James Hawes has an impressive list of directorial TV credits. With the likes of “Black Mirror” and “Slow Horses” on his CV expectations, on my part, for The Amateur were pretty high. Sadly however his second feature, his first was “One Life” starring Anthony Hopkins back in 2023, turns out to be a reasonably enjoyable somewhat generic, and at times muddled, spy film.

Rami Malek plays Charlie Heller, a gifted decoder who works out of a basement office at headquarters of the CIA in Langley.

Just after a contact sends him incrementing evidence that the CIA are carrying out unauthorised black ops activity’s throughout the world his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is, rather coincidently, killed in a London terrorist attract.

Wanting to kill the terrorists responsible for his wife’s death, and using the incrementing evidence he has, he blackmails his bosses into sending him to a CIA training centre. Here he is taken under the wings of all knowing trainer (Laurence Fishbourne) who unsurprisingly works out that Heller is out of his depths and will probably get himself killed.

With the plot set up The Amateur’s action plods from one European City to the next. The only connecting factor being that there’s either a bad Russians to kill or he meets up with some random colleague that’s out to help him but who turn up for no more than five minutes each (Caitríona Balfe and Jon Bernthal are woefully underused)

Malek unfortunately is no Matt Damon and whilst The Amateur wants to be the next Jason Bourne the lack of charisma from Malek, who gives a pretty one dimensional performance, makes The Amateur feel more like something Charles Bronson might have started in back in the 80’s. Death Wish and its numerous sequels keep springing to mind.

The Amateur at the end of the day is a functional spy film but from the director of Slow Horses that’s maybe just not enough.