Summary
- The Amateur starring Rami Malek releases on April 11, 2025, with a $60M budget.
- Malek plays a CIA decoder seeking revenge in this unique action-thriller.
- Malek, rejecting advice from Tom Cruise, embraces his character's vulnerability and relatable aspects.
The Amateur will be released on April 11, 2025, as an action-thriller starring Rami Malek in the lead role. With a $60 million budget, there is plenty of expectation that this 20th Century Studios movie will be an exciting and gripping experience. The Amateur has a unique premise, thrusting an unexpected person into the heart of the action.
Malek is playing Charlie Heller, who is a CIA decoder who opts to take matters into his own hands when his supervisors refuse to take action following the death of his wife. What follows is a gripping and tense movie that even Tom Cruise would've enjoyed being part of, and the iconic action star did offer Malek some advice ahead of the role.
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There are few actors who audiences would think of more for taking on an action movie than Cruise, as he has spent his career being involved in some of the biggest blockbusters of all time. He's most notably known for his work in the Mission Impossible franchise, where he has put together some of the wildest stunts in cinematic history. Malek revealed to Discussing Film that Cruise reached out to him ahead of The Amateur to provide some advice for him, but the Bohemian Rhapsody star had to reject it. He said, "Tom Cruise found out, he goes, 'you're going to need weapons training.' I was like, 'nope, I don't need weapon's training he's The Amateur, I need Laurence Fishburne training, I need mentor training.'"
The fact that Malek turned down the advice of a megastar like Cruise showcases just how in tune he was with this particular character and how he wanted the role to come off, which will ultimately benefit The Amateur's quality. His character is supposed to be one who isn't full of confidence in what he's doing, unlike most of Cruise's roles are. The idea that he doesn't quite know what he's doing is ultimately the major draw of The Amateur for people.
He's an unexpected hero in The Amateur, almost being an everyman outside of his supreme intelligence. Heller is someone people can relate to and see aspects of themselves within, as people can understand his actions. He's simply a desperate man looking to avenge his wife, with love being at the heart of everything he does against the threat of grave danger. It's a different action movie to the majority in this genre as the lead characters from those movies tend to be more like what Cruise has done, where they're fully trained and have a great range of skills to handle any expectations.
Of course, this isn't Malek's first action film either, as he's previously been part of the James Bond franchise. Malek starred as the villain Lyutsifer Safin in No Time to Die, but even that role is totally different from his part in The Amateur. Here, he gets to play the hero and someone audiences will actively root for from the start of the journey. People will look forward to seeing whether he's able to survive all of the different threats that are placed in his way and the obstacles he must overcome to achieve his goal in The Amateur, even without taking the advice of Cruise.