By today's standards it seems that every film must have action and unbelievable stunt work sequences every few moments to maintain the audience's attention span. That being said, if that's what you're looking for then you will be disappointed in this film. I, on the other hand, found this film to be fairly good. It's about a CIA operative who works as a cryptologist who's girlfriend is murdered by terrorists. He seeks revenge on the terrorists after being refused by his superiors for the company to take any action to bring the terrorists to justice and manages to come up with some incriminating evidence that the CIA denied having. He then uses the evidence to blackmail his superiors into training him for the mission. He discovers that the terrorists are in Czechoslovakia and of course, his hiding place for the evidence is found by the CIA after he's in Czech territory and before you know it he's trying to dodge both the Czech soldiers and the CIA agents out to silence him once and for all, with a surprising twist at the climax of the film. John Savage does a fairly good job in the title role and Christopher Plummer is a convincingly likable Communist baddie. As I said, if it's action you like then don't bother. But for a more slow paced and realistic film then you may enjoy this.
Review of The Amateur
