A classic revenge story is always good entertainment. The history of cinema is rife with iconic tales such as Oldboy, John Wick, and Jackie Chan’s The Foreigner. It’s satisfying to watch bad guys get their comeuppance in spectacular fashion. Today, we’re adding The Amateur to that illustrious list.

The Amateur features Rami Malek as Charles Heller, a prolific cryptographer working for the CIA. After his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) is murdered during a hostage situation in London, Heller goes on a personal quest to exact revenge on his wife’s killers.

A unique protagonist

It’s not an entirely fresh story, given its prevalence in the various examples listed above. However, it does differ by showcasing a protagonist with a unique skillset. Charles Heller is not an ordinary guy or a super assassin. Instead, he’s a precocious super hacker who makes up for his lack of physical skill with smarts and adaptability.

Rather than wowing with gunplay, Heller impresses with a MacGyver-like ability to sneak out of deadly situations. Without the pressure of life or death, he goes even harder, bordering on outright sadism to trap his targets in situations that the Hitman franchise might takes notes of. Each plot beat comes with a sense of curiosity: What insane trap is Heller building now?

At first, it was concerning that the film sets Heller up as an invincible hacker. The first acts of the film barely shows its hacking prodigy as a physically weak specimen. In fact, Heller very quickly makes it known that he has no field training, despite being a CIA agent. However, he doesn’t get beat up. He always manages to escape relatively unscathed.

To be fair, Heller does mess up often in the early parts of his campaign. For example, a botched poisoning sees him release his target before completing his mission. There are various times he acts out of emotion, rather than a more logical sense of self-preservation. In another assassination attempt, he pushes through with his original plan, despite his enemies already discovering what he’s up to.

It’s only through his companions (such as Inquiline, a clandestine hacker played by Catriona Balfe) or sheer luck that he escapes his mistakes. However, a switch does flip in the second half where he turns from an awkward assassin into a more capable killer.

The makings of a good revenge film

That said, it doesn’t always feel like there are any stakes to his survival, except for losing the ability to avenge his wife. This is common in revenge plots where the protagonist loses their reason for living and goes on a suicidal mission. However, these films often compensate for the lack of stakes with either pure action (as in John Wick) or a deeper conspiracy (as in The Foreigner).

The Amateur does a bit of both. It comes with an assortment of tense scenes and chases, despite the lack of guns and one-on-one fights. It also comes with a deeper conspiracy that goes to the very roots of the CIA. Right before he goes AWOL, Heller discovers that the mercenaries he’s hunting after is affiliated with Deputy Director Alex Moore (Holt McCallany) who runs illegal black ops missions outside the purview of the CIA. Heller blackmails Moore into training him enough to hunt for his wife’s killer.

Though he does get enough training, he finds himself being chased after by two more parties: the corrupt side of the CIA and a cleaner side of the agency who wants to root out the corruption. Coupled with Heller’s own chase, these do seem like a lot going on for a full-length movie. Thankfully, none of these elements overstay their welcome. CIA agents don’t randomly pop up to ruin Heller’s success. And yet, the film still neatly ties everything together in a nicely wrapped package.

Overall, The Amateur doesn’t reinvent the wheel of revenge films. It does, however, place a slightly more unique role as its revenge seeker. It’s enough to create intrigue for the entire runtime. Either way, the film is very watchable as a way to turn off your mind for a while.