I always thought this was a good spy film. It's not a big budget film. Maybe the lackluster reviews are because of the story arc painting the USA gov't in a bad light. I will say SPOILER ALERT I AM GIVING AWAY MAIN PLOT POINTS HERE BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED SO Don't Whine. Don't read below: ################################################################# Savage works for CIA in a non spy boring job. His wife happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and is part of a terrorist hostage taking operation. The terrorists make demands and threaten to kill hostages. Officials balk and try to negotiate. They bring out a hostage (savage wife) on TV. Terrorist kills his wife and Savage see's it on live TV. Officials give into demands and terrorists fly off to Eastern Europe during Cold war. Savage is told nothing CIA can do as they are protected in Eastern Europe. Savage is not buying it and as a cryptographer he gets hold of embarrassing CIA files and basically black mails the CIA to send him to the FARM and be trained as a field agent. Behind the scenes CIA is trying to track down the black mailed files which Savage has hidden and also given to a reporter friend for protection. Savage gets his mission for revenge. The CIA tracks and cuts a deal with the reporter for the files. Not knowing Savage has a copy hidden. Right after he crosses border CIA tries to hunt Savage to kill him now that Savage has lost his leverage. Meanwhile Savage tracks down the terrorists... I will stop here and say that the following plot point ends up making the US gov't CIA look badly while the Soviet KGB officer in film comes out looking good.I think this is a good spy film. In fact it was a small film and a lot of it's plot you can see in other future films. The Bourne films with Matt Damon have some of this film in them. As do other's. A lot of Hollywood big films take small films like this film's plot points and use the idea's for larger films knowing the general public may not have seen it. TOO bad a remake wasn't made as alleged on the board. The main plot points would make an interesting updated film. Contrary to a reviewer about Czech footage. Since this is cold war it should look bleak. In fact I am going to re watch this film.----------- TJH

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.

A leftist terror group erupts into the US Consulate in München, and takes a number of hostages, including Americans. The hardboiled team demands the immediate release of a number of fellow terrorist, otherwise the US hostages will be shot dead at a rate of one per hour. A "post Münich '72" discussion takes place between German and US spokesmen to determine what to do. As the terrorists' demands aren't met within the imposed deadline, one of the hostages gets executed in cold blood. The young woman who got shot dead was the girlfriend of a CIA computer specialist. But at the same time -strange coincidence- , the killer too is working for the CIA, and has infiltrated the terrorist cell. The boyfriend of the executed girl -although an "egghead" or CIA bureaucrat- wants to avenge her death by killing systematically all the members of the cell. He learns that they are hiding in Easter Europe. As the CIA doesn't seem to be inclined to help him, he uses some arm twisting techniques to force the Director of Central Intelligence to change his stance...The film certainly isn't bad, but at the same time I couldn't call it fantastic either. Therefor, the story is built on just too much coincidences and unlikely events. Also, the idea of the non-experienced CIA man managing to do unlikely things, exactly because he's no trained and therefor predictable field agent has been treated in a much more convincing way in "Three Days of the Condor".Christopher Plummer was doing a relatively nice job as Professor Lakos, but on the whole, I found the actors too neither sensational, neither incredibly bad. Same thing for the OST. That is -to me at least- the weak point of the movie: it is in almost all its aspects "just average", nothing more, nothing less.The strongest side of the movie is the excellent choice of locations. The chosen Austrian landscapes, and a few Skoda's here and really give the impression the movie has been shot somewhere in Eastern Europe.

This isn't anti-American nonsense, despite the protest of one viewer. Why would it be outrageous to assume that this is indeed how the CIA operates at times? Siding secretly with certain members staging terrorist threats in order to advance a policy agenda? Maybe it doesn't occur exactly as displayed in the sometimes confusing and poorly paced 'The Amateur', but if recent films like 'Syriana', which are based on the documented experiences of agency insiders, then it is not entirely impossible. In fact, such movies should've done a better job of shattering the ultra-patriotic myths that, at least within the vocal majority, define the perceptions of America.This is the story of a CIA agent who's wife was a hostage in a terrorist invasion in Munich. She was killed and he's not sure exactly how to move on until a friend, a Holocaust survivor, had told his own story of how he tracked down the doctor in the death camps who gassed his family and strangled him. The idiot agent, however, decides to ask for official permission to personally avenge the terrorists that murdered his wife. A ciphering expert, he blackmails the agency with evidence of their own foreign foul play which in turn, can be leaked to the public. But, the terrorists are not exactly who they seem to be, and his travels in Czechoslovakia, tracking them down, soon turn deadly when he is chased around by other agents looking to kill him.The problem with a lot of political espionage films is that they tend to involve too many characters who are introduced into an already complex plot of treason and dispute. Their placement in the story is often explained long after their introduction, as are their names, and further make things difficult for the viewer to sort out in his head as the events pass. Moreover, a good deal of the beginning of this film, setting the ground work for what the agent wants to do, is played out with such slow pacing, none of the action really seems to come about until the later half of the second act.I suspect this one was based on a true story, judging by the words summing up the post-film fate of the characters.