The Movie Guru: ‘The Amateur’ has great acting, while ‘One of Them Days’ a ton of fun
The Amateur (in theaters)
A good actor can keep you distracted from a flawed plot, but only until you’ve left the theater.
That’s definitely the case with “The Amateur,” based on an early novel by Robert Littell. The book was poorly reviewed upon its 1981 release, with many critics pointing out its numerous plot holes, and the current rewrite by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli doesn’t manage to stitch them all closed. Rami Malek’s performance is interesting enough to distract from most of the trailing threads, along with a handful of stellar but underutilized supporting cast members. But that only lasts as long as as you don’t think about it, because once you do the missing bits of logic and theme come back like cracks in a foundation.
The story stars Malek as a CIA tech specialist and devoted husband who is fantastically bad at interacting with anyone else. When his wife is killed in a terrorist attack, Malek’s character decides he needs to go after the killers since the CIA won’t. The problem is that being good at machines only makes you good at a very specific type of murder, and blackmailing the CIA to try and get more training make them really want to kill you themselves.
Malek is as wonderfully expressive as always, making his character’s guilt and grief the most believable thing in the movie. His response to the deaths he’s causing is nuanced, horrified one minute and deeply vengeful the next, but he’s hampered by a script that can’t decide whether he’s actually a killer or not. Laurence Fishburne and Rachel Brosnahan are both fantastic with the little bits they’re given to do.
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What could they all have accomplished in a better movie?
Grade: Two and a half stars
One of Them Days (Netflix)
Bad days are terrible to experience, but they can be really fun to watch.
That’s definitely the case with “One of Them Days,” the delightful new R-rated comedy starring Keke Palmer and SZA. It was in theaters for half a second this past January, but now that it’s landed in streaming it’s the perfect opportunity to enjoy the movie’s pitch-perfect silliness. This is classic buddy comedy at its best, propelled by excellent casting and a heightened sense of reality that still manages to be relatable. We don’t want to live the day they’re having, but they’re definitely people we’d want to hang out with.
Dreux (Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) are two longtime friends who live together in a rundown L.A. apartment. It’s the first of the month, but Alyssa’s no-good boyfriend ran off with the money and they need to find some way to make it back. Add an important job interview, a predatory loan company, a blood bank, a cute but possibly homicidal neighbor, a dangerous pair of shoes, and you have the recipe for one crazy day.
It’s the cast that makes the movie work so beautifully. Palmer has incredible comic timing, capable of selling both big, dramatic moments and smaller, subtler moments of humor. SZA nails a dreamier vibe, the perfect balance of spaciness without actually being dumb. The two play off against each other really well, creating a believable bond with just the right amount of comedy yin and yang.
Add in an equally entertaining supporting cast, and you’ve got a bad day you’ll want to experience over and over again.
Grade: Three stars
Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society. Drop her a line at themovieguruslc@gmail.com.
