When his supervisors at the CIA refuse to take action after his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a decoder takes matters into his own hands. (from IMDB)

The Amateur, directed by James Hawes, is a brand new adaptation of Robert Littell's 1981 spy novel of the same name. The story revolves around a CIA data analyst whose wife is murdered in a terrorist attack and he wants justice for her death. When his supervisors refuse to do anything about it, he blackmails them into training him with some skills to take action himself. Rami Malek takes on the role of Charlie Heller, and does a solid job playing a nerdy agent who has to rely on his smarts instead of physicality to get revenge on his wife's killers.

The Amateur, as a film, has been drawing some comparisons to the Jason Bourne franchise, and I have to admit they feel like distant cousins at least. It's hard to liken Heller to Bourne since Heller can barely defend himself in a fight - something we see happen pretty early on. Heller goes rogue, much like Bourne, intent on getting revenge on those who've wronged him - doing what he feels is right and needs to be done when others won't do it. And while The Amateur lacks the action-packed moments a Bourne movie delivers, there's plenty of tension that Hawes builds along the way, making The Amateur a delight for spy thriller fans.

But for those looking for a Bourne or Bond movie with The Amateur, this movie isn't that. It's a slow burn. The Amateur starts out to a pretty slow crawl, but not necessarily in a bad way. It allows us to get to know Charlie Heller as a person and feel his loss and pain, rather than just thrusting us into his world and expecting us to care as we get mindlessly pulled along from scene to scene. After all, the Bourne films always gave viewers time to get to know Jason... even if he didn't really know himself (and that mystery was part of the draw for those stories). I don't know if there's a future for Heller outside The Amateur - and I had quite a tough time trying to find if Littell ever wrote more stores involving him - but The Amateur, as a film, introduces the character nicely. Heaven knows we live in a franchise-driven world, so I wouldn't be surprised if 20th Century Studios has a future planned for the character.

Because The Amateur is a slow burn, it won't be for everyone. I happen to be a sucker for spy stories -- Bond, Bourne, Ethan Hunt (Mission: Impossible), Michael Westen (Burn Notice), to name a few -- and I feel like this movie delivered pretty well. Malek is kind of an odd leading man, though. His casting makes sense for being more of a techie-based "hero," and he certainly makes for a more unassuming foil for his foes. But Malek is a strong actor, regardless, and his oddities only worked to the character's benefit. Strong players surround Malek, too, with the likes of Laurence Fishburne, Caitríona Balfe and Michael Stuhlbarg all being great additions to the cast. Pairing Malek alongside Fishburne and Balfe made for some of the movie's best moments. Rachel Brosnahan plays Charlie's wife, Sarah, and I just loved her in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (which I watched thanks to the aid of VidAngel). She's underused here, sadly, since she gets dismissed really early on, but Hawes and company do a good job keeping her popping up here and there by way of Charlie imagining her still with him at times. It also helps keep reminding the audience why Charlie is on this warpath for revenge.

The content is expected for the genre, but I'd dare say it's a little lighter than what you might usually get from a Bourne or Bond film. There is some language, but it's very sparse, only occuring in small bursts. The violence is mostly off screen - like characters dying from falls or explosions. There is a pretty brutal and sloppy hand-to-hand fight between Charlie and another character, as well as a surprising moment when a character is hit by a vehicle and killed. We then see their body lying in the street with their eyes frozen open. Another sequence shows a person getting caught in a pool of water as it crashes a great distance below, killing them (which we don't see), with the most violent sequence being two men fighting to the death in a hotel laundry room. A man ends up shooting another man in the head, with the impact hidden behind the first man's body and just some blood being shown on the wall behind the victim as they fall over. There's a little more blood shown later when a person catches a bullet to the chest while in a car, and we see their wound shadowed in the dimly lit night. Finally, there is no sexual content.

The Amateur is a nice pre-summer globe-trotting spy thriller that is more modest than extravagant (although I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how great the on-location visuals were - especially when it takes us to the streets of Paris or Spain), but does a decent job scratching the itch of anyone looking for a little espionage in their post-winter theater-going. It won't be the best movie you'll see this year, but it's got a solid cast, musical score and story that makes it well worth checking out if it sounds like your particular brand of tea.