TheOtherMovieGuy

I went into The Amateur cautiously optimistic. With strong billing, I expected at least a solid, character-driven thriller. And with Rami Malek leading, I figured the emotional core would carry through. But after the credits rolled, I was left with the feeling that this was fine - just fine - but ultimately hollow.

Rami Malek is a strong actor, no doubt about it. But here, he felt misused, or perhaps underwritten. His character is built entirely around external markers such as the loving wife, a secretive job, a passion for his plane, but we never really learn who Charles Heller is. There's no interiority, no tension between the man and the mission. It's hard to fully blame Malek; I think the fault mostly lies with the script. But I also feel he doesn't do much to elevate it either.

Great actors can sometimes save a weak script, as we see Laurence Fishburne and Jon Bernthal do here - in supporting roles, mind you. They manage to rise above the script's limitations and bring something grounded and real to their characters. That's talent.

But the script itself? It's formulaic and plays out predictably, exactly as you'd expect a Hollywood production to. It never surprises. That might be forgivable if the dialogue had spark or looseness, but it doesn't. Instead, it feels stiff, like something lifted from a mid-tier TV production. I was surprised to see Ken Nolan's name attached; maybe he came in late to patch things up. But as I've often said: if you didn't write it from scratch, you can't fully save it.

The pacing, I was fine with. I don't mind a slower film. But this one runs too long, and the drawn-out scenes can't deliver the depth they seem to be reaching for. I suspect the director wanted to steep us in the protagonist's inner demons but without a truly developed inner world, that attempt falls flat.

That said, the cinematography is great. The use of real locations adds a genuine feel, and the camera work is solid throughout. It gives the movie a sheen of quality it doesn't always earn through story or dialogue. And again, Fishburne and Bernthal lift things just enough to keep you engaged.

So, where does that leave me? It's a six. You might think I'm being harsh but the film is certainly watchable. But if you skip it, you won't be missing out.

Ah yes, the timeless tale of a possibly fictional guy who shot an apple off his kid's head. Obviously ripe for a bloated, self-important Hollywood epic! Why stick to Schiller's classic when you can throw in some medieval Fast & Furious action scenes, a few vague historical references, and a Braveheart-style monologue that's more drama class audition than battle cry?

The acting? Gloriously overcooked. The script? Written, it seems, by a time-traveling teenager with a flair for clichés. As for historical accuracy, well... if you squint, it almost looks like the 13th century. Or Skyrim. Really hard to tell.

This film feels like someone Googled "William Tell" for five minutes and thought, "You know what this legend needs? Sword fights, explosions, and emotional arcs we forgot to finish." Brilliant.

One star - and only because of the mountains, which did a better job than the cast. Please, no sequel. Please.

It's not often that I laugh during a film and simultaneously feel the chill of historical truth pressing against my spine, but "The Death of Stalin" pulls off that delicate balance with surgical precision. This is a dark comedy in the truest sense-not edgy or irreverent, but claustrophobic terror dressed in bureaucratic farce. It's absurd, uncomfortable, and absolutely brilliant.

The film opens with Stalin alive and terrifying, and ends with his inner circle scrambling over his still-warm corpse-each man terrified of misstepping while quietly trying to outmaneuver the others. And that's exactly how it went down in 1953.

What sets this film apart isn't just the uniformly excellent performances, but its script's ability to capture the twisted logic of Soviet leadership. These were men who spent decades cultivating fear under Stalin, only to discover that they had become prisoners of the very system they built.

Simon Russell Beale's Beria is chilling-equal parts snake, bureaucrat, and predator. Steve Buscemi is brilliant as the slippery, calculating Khrushchev. And Jason Isaacs' Zhukov, all brash confidence and military swagger, steals every scene he's in.

But perhaps the most tragicomic figure is Molotov-a man so ideologically devoted to Stalin that he praises the arrest of his own wife. That moment in the film where he stumbles through justifying her imprisonment with stoic loyalty isn't satire. It happened. And it says more about the psychology of Soviet leadership than most books ever could.

There are moments that are genuinely funny because of sharp writing and delivery-and others that land even harder because they're so close to historical truth. I found myself smiling (silently and on the inside), not at the cruelty, but at how well the film captures the mechanics of authoritarian collapse: the hesitation, ritualised fear, and sudden brutality.

Each rewatch (and I've had several) reveals something new-a glance, a line, a silence weighted with implication. It's a film rich in detail and dark historical resonance.

And if you want to go deeper, to understand the man whose death haunts this story, I can't recommend enough the works of Simon Sebag Montefiore's Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar and Stephen Kotkin's Stalin trilogy. These works add a disturbing layer of context that makes the film feel even more grounded and more unsettling.

The Death of Stalin is more than political satire. It's a study in power, fear, and survival. And the more you know about Soviet history, the sharper-and more disturbing-the humour becomes.

So, yes, it's funny. But it's the kind of funny that makes you think... and then wonder why you're laughing in the first place because it's quite dark.