Computer per un omicidio

I have never been to the Czech Republic yet, but I hope that some day I will make it. This movie will certainly not influence my decision – but Czechs might like to watch it. Will they recognize their own country? I doubt it.

Basically this is a vigilante movie. Some terrorists (not oriental Muslims for once but German home grown nut cases) storm the American consulate in Munich, take all people hostage and ask for the release of some of their comrades. Otherwise they will kill a hostage every, say, half hour. For good measure they kill a young woman right after formulating their demands. As fate would have it, it's the fiancée of a CIA ciphers specialist who decides that he wants to go after the killers (who got away) and kill them in turn, cost it what it may.

The terrorist's area for occasional relaxation and training sessions is the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. So our hero has to go there and forces his employer to help him. Once there he discovers that they don't like him at the CIA and are after his hide. But among bad to brutish Czechs he finds good Czechs who will gladly risk their lives so that he can fulfill his (perfectly understandable) dreams of revenge.

Very often this movie is outright ridiculous. But there are a few very good and excellently filmed scenes. The highlight for me is the young yet very bald terrorist who takes a swim in a luxurious old Czech hotel, all on his own, only to get blown up by our hero with the help of plastics taped to the glass pane which separates the pool from the bar. The acting is so so but Christopher Plummer is simply brilliant as the sophisticated bad Czech. There seem to be no limits for this wonderful actor, he really is extremely versatile. The Czech outdoor scenes were partly filmed in Vienna, there are also a few great shots of 19th century Munich.

This spy/action/thriller concerns about a CIA computer analyst named Heller(John Savage) , when his girlfriend encounters traveling across Europe, she's suddenly kidnapped in an Embassy by a terrorist group , a Baader Mainhoff-alike, and is shot by the leader named Brewer (Nicholas Campbell). Then Heller seeks vengeance, and contacts to girlfriend's father(Jan Rubes). Later obligates his CIA superiors(Arthur Hill,George Coe), under threat blackmail(to publish it a journalist played by John Marley) , for becoming CIA camp agent trained by a veteran(Ed Lauter) and to send him to the Communist Bloc countries . In Czechoslovakia he unites forces to Cia agent(Marthe Keller) and is pursued by a contra-espionage chief(Christopher Plummer) in Praga. Meanwhile Heller investigates and aware a cobweb of lies underneath the company.

This exciting film gets tension, suspense, action ,mystery and a bit of violence, however sometimes in a little confused and embarrassing . Mediocre screenplay with some gaps by Robert Littell and based on his novel. The movie belongs to ¨Cold war genre¨ , whose maxim height were the John Le Carre novels and his various cinematic adaptations such as ¨The spy who came in freeze, The Kremlin letter and Russia House¨.Suspenseful musical score and colorful cinematography filmed in streets of Vienna(lookalike Praga) and interior scenarios shot in Canadian studios. The movie was a flop though is today better considered, in fact Leonard Matlin rated it as 'Bomb'. The motion picture is professionally directed by Charles Jarrot. He has an eclectic career as TV as cinema with a plethora of success(Anne of the thousands days, Mary of Scots) and failures at the box office(Condorman, Last flight of Noah's Ark, Amateur). Rating : Passable and acceptable.

John Savage plays 'The Amateur' of the title a CIA code scrambler who convinces his superiors to send him to the eastern bloc in order to avenge the murder of his Girlfriend by terrorists, Savage Uncovers a web of deception whilst in the Eastern Bloc, Marthe Keller costars in her typical role as a seductively mysterious German, Christopher Plummer is an intellectual lecturer who is also involved. Genre favorite and the incredibly underrated Ed Lauter also appears. the cipher would of been a much better title than 'The Amateur' other than that it is an entertaining film packed with lots of action and twists and turns.

(1981) The Amateur THRILLER

Based on a novel written by Robert Littell, which starts out with a shocking beginning, where some Chzech terrorists take control over a CIA office located in Germany for the purpose of an exchange of their lives for a release of one of their own, otherwise if their demands are not met within 1 hour then they will kill one hostage every 15 minutes. The higher ups think the terrorists are bluffing so they pick out a name at random out of a bunch of American passports and it happens to be this guys girlfriend, and she gets shot right on the head on front of tv stations and the German police authorities. The boyfriend who also happens to work for the CIA as well as a technician extracts revenge since the American gov't doesn't want to get involved about going for their capture. So decides to be a radical by becoming a vigilante by devising a plan to blackmail for the information for their whereabouts to do just that, but at the same time want to be professionally trained to do the job himself- hence the title "The Amateur" who is the star. Extremely dull thriller since the type casting is way off base but I manage to go through it by using the fast forward button on my remote control since if I were to sit through it- it would've bored me to hell. It is happens to be action-less using suspense instead which the fast forward button could handle as well. I agree with film critic Leonard Maltin review on the movie that the actors are typecasted and so forth... and that the acting is mediocre at best, but it's worth watching if you want to see something that has never been done before.

I found The Amateur to be thoroughly entertaining for the very reason some viewers may not like it. This is not a slick, gadget laden action flick. The hero is a very human, run of the mill intelligence analyst (not a super spy) whose determined to avenge the death of his love interest by terrorists. Truth be told, I think this is much closer to reality than most movies of this genre. If this film were released on video I believe it could easily become a cult classic. I would certainly buy it on DVD or video if it were available. Oh and by the way, even though it's not James Bond it does have some pretty interesting action sequences.