The Amateur * (1981, John Savage, Christopher Plummer, Marthe Keller) – Classic Movie Review 12,569

Charles Jarrott’s Canadian 1982 film The Amateur.

The 1982 film The Amateur stars John Savage, Christopher Plummer and Marthe Keller. The classy cast works hard but is largely at a loss in this muddled spy thriller about a computer buff (John Savage), taking a course in becoming a hitman. 

Director Charles Jarrott’s Canadian 1982 film The Amateur is based on the novel by Robert Littell, and stars John Savage, Christopher Plummer and Marthe Keller.

The classy cast works hard but is largely at a loss in this muddled spy thriller about a computer buff called Charles Heller (John Savage), taking a course in becoming a hitman, and then going to East Europe to stalk a trio of terrorists who raided Munich’s American consulate and killed his girlfriend.

Jarrott directs disappointingly, with a lack of urgency and imagination, but it’s all the implausibilities and improbabilities in Robert Littell and Diana Maddox’s daft, hard-to-believe screenplay that are really the problem.

Also in that fine cast are Arthur Hill, Ed Lauter, John Marley, Nicholas Campbell, Jan Rubes, Graham Jarvis, Chapelle Jaffe, Jan Triska, Lynne Griffin, George Coe, and Jacques Grodin.

Charles Jarrott’s films include: Time to Remember (1962), Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Mary Queen of Scots (1971), Lost Horizon (1973), The Dove (1974), The Other Side of Midnight (1977), Escape form the Dark [The Littlest Horse Thieves] (1977), The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark (1980), Condorman (1981), The Amateur (1981).

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,569

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