You can’t look up the budget for the CIA. Ever since the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, it has remained a secret not only from the public, but from Congress. To obtain some semblance of the budget, you have to comb through out-of-place bylines in every other government department and agency until you can piece together a rough outline. 

This lack of oversight and the hidden actions the CIA takes in service of national security are the fundamental forces propelling James Hawes’ new techno-espionage thriller “The Amateur.” And while the questions it raises about this lack of trust are interesting and dangerous enough to get you invested, it lacks the edge you’d want from a movie like this.

In “The Amateur,” CIA master decoder Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) discovers Special Activities Center director Alex Moore (Holt McCallany) is using his position to carry out highly illegal, politically motivated extrajudicial killings and bombings against innocent civilians and allied countries through a top secret leak. Before he can do anything about this, Heller finds out that his wife was killed in a terrorist hostage incident during a routine work trip to London. When he learns that the CIA has worked with these terrorists before, he blackmails Moore into receiving agency resources so he can kill each of the terrorists in a globe-trotting adventure.

This is not a revolutionary narrative. There have been a million movies about rogue, hyper-intelligent spies defying orders and a million other stories of one man avenging his wife’s murder by killing a couple people spattered around the world. However, there are a few elements that made this a somewhat enjoyable viewing experience, namely the action creativity afforded by a physically incompetent protagonist. Heller is smart — with an IQ of 170 — and obviously adept with espionage technology, but he can’t fight to save his life. Because he is at a constant disadvantage, Heller must find creative ways to get out of danger: makeshift bombs, advanced surveillance manipulation and complex traps to name a few. While none of these things are novel enough to elevate the material, “The Amateur” has enough fun with its premise to keep you off your phone.

It’s more the opportunities left untaken, rather than anything the film brings to the table, which keep “The Amateur” from achieving anything more exciting. Its presentation is about as bargain-bin as you can get for an espionage thriller. The film is populated with undersaturated handheld cinematography and overzealous editing which isn’t distracting, but doesn’t enhance its excitement. There isn’t a dedication to any sort of aesthetic vision — the camera isn’t frenetic enough to convey a heightened sense of anxiety but isn’t distant or calculated enough to convey the workmanlike intelligence of the protagonist — which leaves “The Amateur” in a strange middle ground lacking all of the most interesting notes from the better films it wants to be.

Continuing that thread, there’s also a lack of narrative curiosity which hampers the film’s most interesting aspect: its anti-CIA angle. “The Amateur” pays extensive attention to the CIA’s unencumbered power — it has access to every phone, camera and ID in the world, and the power to effectively kill anyone at any time if it wants to. The twist at the beginning is a scandal on the level of the Iran-Contra affair, a moment so wholly damning of the CIA that it would feel natural to think that the agency should not be afforded the level of secrecy and safety it has received since 1949. However, this is not the conclusion “The Amateur” comes to.

While “The Amateur” may start off the races with two villains — the terrorists Heller wants to kill and the CIA which wants to kill Heller — it really ends with one. For all of the evidence the film raises, with constant indications in the first half that the CIA is just as if not more evil than the terrorists Heller wants dead, it all peters out by the end. The CIA’s director (Julianne Nicholson) claims that the CIA’s motives shouldn’t remain in the shadows and the climax doesn’t even feature the CIA. Instead of questioning the role that an organization with effectively zero oversight plays in pursuit of some idea of national security, all the ire of the story turns towards Moore, the one bad cog in the machine. This is a cowardly conclusion — it sucks out any edge or intrigue the film could’ve had, and it’s not one even supported by the evidence the film itself raises. Watch the 1974 film “The Conversation” instead.

Contact Max Vetter at [email protected].