The Amateur

While The Amateur is technically a remake, it's more akin to last year's The Fall Guy. Popular culture has largely forgotten the original spy movie (and book), and the marketing for James Hawes' version has avoided mentioning that source material. Given that neither was very well received, that's probably for the best, as it gives Rami Malek and company the opportunity to succeed (or fail) on their own terms. Hawes and his writing team kept the same basic story and major plot points while updating it to reflect our post-Cold War world, as well as the digital age. However, whereas the original posited Charlie Heller's inexperience was his superpower, this version centers his alternative set of skills, which do not including firing a gun.

Not that Charlie (Malek) necessarily wants to become a spy. He's adjacent to that life by dint of being a cryptographer at the CIA and is friendly with some field operatives. But his sole focus is getting revenge on the terrorists who murdered his wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan). Unimpressed by the efforts of Deputy Director Alex Moore (Holt McCallany) and his associate Caleb (Danny Sapani) to track and neutralize the bad guys, Charlie insists on doing it himself. You'd be right to question why they would agree to such a bad idea. They see his inevitable failure as a tidy way to cover their own asses, taking Charlie off the board after he recently came across some cables implicating them in a cover-up.

Read my full review on Pop Culture Maniacs.