Thriller territory: Reviews of 'Drop' and 'The Amateur'


At a glance

  • Drop - Directed by Christopher Landon and starring Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar, this is the kind of release you’d have ignored, drawing blanks on both the director and the stars.

  • The Amateur - Boasting a big budget, numerous global locations, and a cast that overflows with acting chops, this remake of a Robert Littell novel looks on paper like it should be a runaway success.


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A scene from 'Drop'

Two thrillers are vying for our attention at cinemas this week. Drop is a small-budget suspense thriller that works most of the way, especially if you have minimal expectations. While The Amateur can boast a big budget and global locations, it falls short of minimal expectations.

Drop - Directed by Christopher Landon and starring Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar, this is the kind of release you’d have ignored, drawing blanks on both the director and the stars. Meghann came out in the Sicily season of White Lotus. But enter the moviehouse with no expectations. You will be pleasantly surprised by Landon's competence in setting the scenario, then playing with the premise and the possibilities, and utilizing the screen so we are as informed as the main protagonist, Violet Gates (Fahy). She’s a single Mom who was a victim of domestic abuse and now works helping victims who are like her. She agrees to go on a first date with Henry Campbell (Skelnar) at a swanky, fine-dining Chicago resto called Palate. 

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While dining, she begins getting mystery messages, plus video content that shows someone in her house closely watching her son and her sister, who is babysitting her nephew. It soon becomes clear that the target of the texts is her blind date and that they’re ready to turn her into a reluctant assassin/hit woman to save her son. A brilliantly staged cat-and-mouse game ensues, and kudos to the writers and the director for ratcheting up the tension and second-guessing us on what we would do if in the same situation. It’s only the last thirty minutes or so when they possibly bite off more than they could chew or aren’t sure how to bring the film to a satisfactory resolution and close. And that is a shame, as up to that point, this film succeeded, whereas bigger-budget films have failed.

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A scene from 'The Amateur'

The Amateur - Boasting a big budget, numerous global locations, and a cast that overflows with acting chops, this remake of a Robert Littell novel looks on paper like it should be a runaway success. It resembles The Accountant film franchise (The Accountant 2 is about to open) and looks as slick as the Bourne films. A vigilante spy film, there’s Rami Malek as our titular hero Charles Heller, with Rachel Brosnahan, Caitriona Balfe, Micheal Stuhlbarg, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Bernthal, Takehiro Hira, and Julianne Nicholson all playing strong support roles. As in the novel, Heller (Malek) is CIA, but rather than a field agent, he is a nerdy computer worker and a code breaker. It’s directed by James Hawes, known more for his TV work (Doctor Who, Snowpiercer, Slow Horses), and has One Life as his previous feature film.

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The Amateur label comes from what happens when Heller’s wife is murdered by terrorists just for being the wrong person in the wrong place. This sets off Heller to coerce his fellow CIA operatives to train him for a mission of revenge. Of course, we’re constantly reminded that killers and assassins don’t grow on trees and that it’s more his nerdy background that comes up trumps in helping him outwit those responsible for the death of his wife. We often criticize films for being ‘style over substance’; however, in this rare case, the substance (Littell’s novel) is more than sufficient, and we wish there were more style. Whether Bond or Bourne, the character and his style resonated, so we were ready to forgive what holds were in the story's plotting and credibility. Here, Malek seems out of depth, and to breathe more life into the character, I was hoping he’d break into Bohemian Rhapsody.