The Amateur (2025)

Ah, Rami Malek, Hollywoods new blue-eyed boy, after the success of Bohemian Rhapsody. After his turn as a smaller sized Freddie Mercury, the industry sought him like the way we keep on signing up for a new social media app. Not sure that is an app, I mean, apt comparison, but he’s the man of the season.

Unfortunately, the only thing helping him in this film, as far as performances go, is his bug-eyed appearance. Surely, it helped. For sometimes, then it becomes a routine.

Here’s the story summary, I picked up from MRQE.com, “After his life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a brilliant but introverted CIA decoder takes matters into his own hands when his supervisors refuse to take action.”

It’s a techno/revenge thriller which do manage to be quiet entertaining till we have to convince ourselves of the incredulity being a techie (in this case, Rami is a CIA programmer) who takes off on a revenge spree while evading his masters who then goes after his ass. 

As with most of thrillers of this genre, the journey is fun and they just don’t know how to sustain the momentum in the climax. This film suffers from it. As one reviewer mentioned, the whole film is constructed into having best scenes crafted for a trailer (see my review on Drop).

So, it’s another good popcorn fare that you will immediately forget after digesting it. It will do well in the OTT, I figure.

Drop (2025)

Making a movie trailer is art by itself. More often than not, in order to sell their products hard, the filmmakers and the studio tend to feature the best parts of the film in their trailer. It, of course, ruins the audiences’ experience when the feature is out.

That was what going on my mind when I kept seeing it during all my recent theatre visits, they keep showing this trailer and you know what’s coming.

In a way, that exactly what happened but, the director and his team proved that they can still find way to entertain you despite the tropes and cliches.

If you have seen the trailer, you will know the plot. This gal going on a date suddenly gets messages from unknown contact, urging her to do this and that, or her kid (being babysat by her sister) would be killed. And the threat was convincing enough to get her to do what the sender requests, including (not a spoiler, it was a trailer) to kill her date.

For a good three quarter of the flick, it’s a hell of a thrill ride. Edge of the seat suspense as our protagonist weave her way through one nail biting scene after another to outwit the mysterious sender and hopefully save her kid and the sister.

It’s a good ride while it lasted, as we jump from one suspect to another with as we go through the journey with Violet played by Megan Fahy whose performance is crucial to draw our empathy. She reminded me a lot of Michelle Pfeifer, though.

Set primarily in two locations – a restaurant and Violet’s home – this techsploitation horror as a reviewer termed it, hardly wavers and held my attention up to the end. Yes, the climax is cliched, but I actually wanted it to happen, hell it has to happen.

But thanks largely to Fahy's performance, the film really works. If we were not along with her for the ride, this might as well be another B-grade thriller.

 

Good Bad Ugly (2025)

 I'll make it short and err...

Good : Ajith. The presence, the charisma, the sly humour. It's all there.

Bad: The entire film. Seriously. Son gets kidnapped and dad goes after the baddies. Could have been a short film. But they kept on dragging and dragging.

Ugly: Over glorification of Ajith. Too much of reference to his past films, and especially when they dug Simran out for a short scene. Ewww.

That's it. Abusing Sergio Leone's film title should by itself be an offense.