The Amateur review - revenge of the nerd

In a world of macho super-achievers like Jack Reacher and Ethan Hunt, maybe it’s time to hear it for the nerdy guys. The Amateur (based on a novel by Robert Littell) was made once before, in 1981, starring John Savage and Christopher Plummer and directed by Charles Jarrott.

Thus, perhaps he’s attuned to the misfits and renegades in the undercover world, though the opulently-equipped CIA in The Amateur is a far cry from the low-budget squalor in which Jackson Lamb and his sluggish equines exist. Nonetheless The Amateur does take us to London, where a terrorist attack at St Pancras station kicks the plot into motion. This is because a victim of the attack is Sarah Heller (Rachel Brosnahan), wife of CIA analyst Charles Heller (Remi Malek).

Charles is a quietly-spoken, modestly-mannered dweeb who spends his days (and probably nights) delving into the minutiae of computer systems and surveillance technology. It seems he’s awfully good at this, but what he isn’t is a trained field agent, attuned to rough stuff and mucking about with guns.

But the death of Sarah pushes him to the brink, and he’s determined to get out there and wreak vengeance on the killers. With amazing speed, he has managed to reconstruct a detailed picture of the London attack and its perpetrators by tapping into available CCTV footage, and manages to arm-twist his bosses into letting him loose. With a bit of assistance from a man called Henderson (Laurence Fishburne, pictured above with Malek), who keeps popping up enigmatically at strategic points in the narrative, Charles sets out to hunt down the killers.

The serious, bespectacled Malek does a solid job of portraying the way the introverted Charles is suddenly forced to contend with a maelstrom of raging emotions, though the notion of him as a remorseless avenger bouncing across the globe in search of the killers is never quite going to be plausible. Still, the plot gives director Hawes free reign to exploit some atmospheric locations dotted around the map, from Paris to Marseille to Istanbul to the god-forsaken port of Primorsk on Russia’s Baltic coast (on location, pictured below).

Charles’s gifts as a techno-whizz give the film its most enjoyable moments, as he deploys his devious skills to confound both the bad guys and his employers. He is, for instance, able to throw pursuers off his tail by digitally inserting his image into video feeds all over the world, and he can turn all kinds of tricks with timers and explosives. He also demonstrates how to use a pollen allergy as a deadly weapon. He’s not averse to a little plagiarism, either. He pulls off a spectacular stunt involving a glass-bottomed swimming pool, but Jason Statham fans might justifiably claim that they’ve seen this one before.

There’s stout backup from Holt McCallany as Charles’s bullying boss Moore, while a bearded and barely-recognisable Jon Bernthal plays a mysterious figure known as The Bear. It is he who describes Charles as “just a nerdy fellow who works on computers,” though it’s Henderson who suggests to the agency chiefs that “maybe y’all misjudged this individual.” Indeed, some of them are destined to find this out to their cost.

The Amateur would make a fairly painless night out, but never threatens to bust any new frontiers. Agreeable but not indispensable.

• More film on theartsdesk