After his wife dies in a terrorist attack in London, Charlie Heller (Rami Malek), a CIA decoder, travels around the globe to get answers and revenge while being pursued by his corrupt boss.

The description of the film was not very gripping. It sounded very bland and unoriginal, but the trailer is what really sold me – which is ironic because I try to avoid trailers.  

Seeing the perspective of the nerds and them using their skills and knowledge to get what they want sounds good on paper, but this film had the same elements as seen in your typical action film.  

He tried to go the typical route of shooting guns and fighting with the teachings of Henderson (Laurence Fishburne), but it ultimately does not suit him.  

The film felt like something I’ve already seen before, but the difference was who the protagonist was.  

Heller had all odds against him because he’s a nerd and can’t commit any physical harm to the people who killed his wife, so he worked with what he had.  

The best thing that came out of this was he was able to create some very entertaining and creative ways to get back at his enemies. Having the pool explode 16-stories up was a smart attack and played well into Heller’s character.  

Malek was a great choice to take the lead. He played the part very well and there weren’t many flaws.  

One part that stood out to me is when he first finds out that his wife died, I felt he could have exerted more emotion. He was a little too calm for someone who just lost his wife.  

Pacing was another issue I had with the film. For a lot of it, it felt as though there was no progress being made to Heller finding out who killed his wife.  

Whenever someone was not dying, I was not very interested, for the most part.  He’s going after four different people, so seeing how Heller got to the first one kept my interest, but it felt like the same pattern for the rest of the film – he gets info, he travels, he meets who he intends to kill and then he kills them with some elaborate plan he schemed up prior.  

There’s a fight scene about midway through the film when Henderson gets shot, and it looks as though he dies, but there’s a reveal at the end that he’s still alive.  

This felt unnecessary because Henderson did not seem like a big enough character to still be alive. His role had significance to the overall movie, but I think it would have been fine if he died.  

The movie does a great job putting the audience in the atmosphere, especially when Heller is working on his computer, and we see the nerdier side of him.  

The lighting also plays into this. For a decent amount of the film, we are met with a dark navy blue which gives off a very dark and grim environment.  

The side story of Heller’s boss, Moore (Holt McCallany), was not interesting either. We see early on that he is corrupt because he disguised a drone strike as a suicide bombing.  

This is early in the film, and we see at the end that Moore was arrested. Moore was tracking down Heller and trying to stop him from getting his revenge. 

Because we were so focused on Heller and most of the time when we saw Moore was when he was trying to take down Heller, this side story of him was kind of forgetful.  

The movie is high quality and has exciting action, but it isn’t that original.  

Rate: 2/5