The premiere of the film "The Amateur" has taken place on online platforms, in which Rami Malek's character pretends to be a spy, doesn't trust the CIA, and avenges his murdered wife himself.

Charlie Heller (Rami Malek), a dreamy cryptographer who tenderly loves his wife, works in a special CIA unit where he is barely seen or heard (his workspace is in a basement behind seven locks). But Charlie's life shatters in an instant: his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) dies in a terrorist attack in London. The official investigation stalls, and Heller, accustomed to trusting systems, encounters their helplessness for the first time. But as a cryptographer who has spent years deciphering others' secrets, he is not ready to accept that the truth about the tragedy will be classified, and he is prepared to take revenge on the killers himself.

When watching "The Amateur," if you get the feeling that you're seeing a hybrid of classic Cold War spy dramas and modern thrillers like or Jason Bourne adventures, don't rush to dismiss it as déjà vu. The resemblance is indeed there. With one caveat: almost everything mentioned above was much smarter. Despite the fact that the director of "The Amateur" is James Hawes, the director of the same "Slow Horses." But he decided that we've had enough of teeth-grinding action films set in post-socialist camps. Rami Malek in the new film cannot shoot or fight, and learns part of the spy craft from online videos.

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And in general, "The Amateur" is mostly not about that. Trying to keep up with modern trends, Hawes focuses more on the overarching plot than the main one. And it, like its recent predecessor with Michael Fassbender, or the more distant relative "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," as you might guess, is more about intra-family crises than about cloak-and-dagger knights.

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According to the plot, Malek's character loses his wife and burns with a desire for revenge. True, he has no operational skills and has never worked in the field, because he mainly deals with encryption. A sort of subtle IT guy who suddenly realizes that administering justice himself is the best way out. Although no one categorically refused to help him. For this, he just had to play the right card correctly.

Before carrying out his duty, Charlie goes to a psychologist and recalls the warmest moments of family life, lamenting that he didn't spend enough time with his wife, constantly being stuck at work. You don't know what you've got till it's gone. That's the whole plot. The CIA also gets its share from the director, but the emphasis is made with literally a couple of phrases. But everything that follows after immersing in the main character's life vicissitudes mostly induces yawns. Hawes shadows key moments that would be much more interesting to watch, given the secondary plot and the absolute unreality of what's happening, which the delicate Malek only emphasizes further.

But it could have been better. For example, when Laurence Fishburne appears as a veteran agent assigned to train Charlie, but then ultimately chases him across European locations. He is just one of the talents completely wasted in this film; including Jon Bernthal, who appears briefly at the beginning for no particular reason, then in the middle, and then disappears entirely and never reappears. And there are many such incongruities in the film. The problem with "The Amateur" is not that it's bad. We have a typical case of a film that knows what is expected of it (a solid genre product with Rami Malek in the lead role) but for some reason is embarrassed to be that.

Instead, we get a strange hybrid of psychological drama and spy thriller, where both components exist without much necessity and without connection to each other. Malek, usually so convincing in his unconventional roles, here looks like a man who accidentally wandered onto the set from a neighboring film about loss. His character — a cryptographer who decides to become an avenger — evokes more bewilderment than empathy, especially when it turns out that he acquires the skills for revenge through the "Googled and tried" method.

Of course, it's also a pity for Fishburne — an actor whose mere presence usually raises the bar of any film. Here, he looks like expensive furniture brought in for ambiance. As a result, "The Amateur" finds itself in a strange position: many interesting ideas, but none are fully realized. Which is especially frustrating, given that Hawes, judging by his past work, knows how to balance between genres.

No, the film is not entirely unwatchable — Malek remains an interesting actor even in such a capacity, and individual (but very few) scenes are shot with expertise. But when, during the end credits, you realize that you've spent an hour and a half in the company of a potentially strong story that never dared to become truly bold, it becomes a bit sad.