The Amateur

And a new franchise is born. Falling somewhere between Jason, Bourne and James Bond, with a dash of the tech guy from Mission impossible, Remi Malik's The Amateur is a wonderfully entertaining and intelligent thriller, with extraordinarily strong supporting acts from just about everybody else involved, including an excellent Lawrence Fishburne, really on form here in a part which gives him real substance for once.

In a year, which has seen its fair share of lack Gloucester movies, this is a real crowd, pleaser, and no doubt we do well in box office as well as on home screen screens. Malik is exceptional believable, and as usual, evoking real emotion.

Mission impossible/James bond esque elements so it's nothing we haven't seen before but it's still very much worth watching, we were thoroughly entertained for the just over 2 hours. I'd give it a 7.5.

I like the angle they went with the tech nerd it made it uniquely interesting instead of the typical assassin killer type. The pacing was good, the events unfolding were logical and also intriguing by showing the CIA capabilities of surveillance and information, the music was awesome along with the cinematics. The acting was pretty standard, nothing to ride home about but some of these reviews are pretty harsh for no good reason.

All in all it's a good movie and worth a theater experience, or just wait till it's on streaming I'll be a great movie for a night in.

"The Amateur" is a Spy Thriller with an extremely promising setup, following a CIA Desk Agent named Charlie, grieving his wife after her murder, turning vigilante to hunt down her killers. This premise is enough to bring audiences into theaters, however, the writers of this movie miss crucial steps in the early parts of the story, thus failing to properly earn the audience's sympathy for Charlie's wife as well as thirst for his revenge. While the rest of the plot is solid and entertaining, in hindsight, "The Amateur" as a film on screen is yet another vigilante revenge story that could have soared, but chose to crawl.

7.25/10 STARS - Saw this was based on a book and now I'm interested to listen to the audiobook (narrated by Scott Brick, who is a fantastic narrator). The movie itself was pretty good, and I enjoyed it. There were some issues here and there with conveniences when it came to his ability to get things done and some moments where suspension of disbelieve was required. Perhaps this was partly because it felt like there was a lot omitted along the way, not clearly showing us how he was able to accomplish what he did. Maybe some more scenes showing him having to figure out how to get to where he needed to be in order to sabotage something would have been good (like in the swimming pool scene). But since this movie was already more than two hours long, I suppose it might be a bit much to show us everything. I liked that we got a good feel for the main characters intense grief over the loss of his wife and his determination to make everyone pay - yet totally out of his element when it came to the brutality of face-to-face killing. Video review will be available on my YouTube channel shortly.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the cinema watching The Amateur. It should have been a short series maybe 4-6 Episodes as opposed to a feature film. I think 2 hours did not leave enough time for proper character development. For example the lead speaks about his great friend played by Lawerence Fisburn in a scene at the end of the film. We never really saw how the two developed that bond as there are barely 2-3 scenes with them together throughout the movie. It was fun though and I feel more so because I watched it at the Theatre. Will definitely give it a rewatch once I can on my couch and recommend anyone who just wants to kick back to give it a watch.