In 2019, Kamala Harris co-sponsored

was introduced into the culture, Robert Littell imagined Charlie Heller, a quiet, CIA cryptographer who goes rogue on a quest for vengeance after his love is killed by terrorists.As star of “The Amateur,” in theaters Friday,

gets to be both skittish nerd and coolly competent angel of death. He’s the homebody and perpetual rule-follower who in grief-stricken madness decides to blackmail his bosses and go on an international killing spree to get the people responsible for her death.The story is based on a book published in 1981 — a product of its Cold War context that was even made into a movie starring John Savage. But even with the Iron Curtain and the Holocaust in its DNA, it also has the kind of foundation that’s essentially evergreen in Hollywood. There’s tragedy, drama, cinematic globetrotting and a fish-out-of-water story that’s a little more relatable than watching some preternaturally talented superspy (at least in theory).In this newest take, credited to screenwriters Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli and directed by James Hawes, the story has been updated for the modern age, with decidedly murky international politics and sophisticated facial and voice recognition software that can identify masked terrorists and their networks and find rogue agents in an instant.

The locations are many: London, Paris, Marseille, Istanbul included. The cast is stacked: Laurence Fishburne is a veteran assassin who agrees to train Charlie,is the dead wife, Julianne Nicholson is the CIA director, Holt McCallany is Charlie’s shady boss. Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe and Michael Stuhlbarg also play pivotal roles. And anyone who has seen the trailer has already gotten a preview of the most impressive set piece, involving a glass infinity pool.

“The Amateur” has a lot going for it -- but it takes also takes a while to get going. Once it does, it can’t quite maintain a level of energy and suspense needed to justify its runtime. This might be because the film is attempting to be something that’s equal parts action-packed and meditative, but for us that means listening to several conversations about the nature of killing that start to sound quite repetitive.

There’s this throughline that Charlie is not a born killer. While a court of law might disagree, everyone in this film seems to think that there’s something different between shooting someone point blank and, say, setting up an elaborate trap that you know will result in a death. Still, it seems like that is a debate that could end after he does intentionally kill someone and goes looking for more.on a potential double play in the sixth inning of a

Having it all means different things to everyone, but a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan is probably pretty close to a universal dream — even for non-New Yorkers. It’s easy enough, then, to understand the profound conundrum facing Iris (Naomi Watts), a writer and professor who suddenly finds herself with a 150-pound Great Dane wardNot only is her place a mere 500 square feet, but it’s also one of those pesky buildings in which dogs are not welcome. Not even the cute, well-behaved ones.

Dog lovers may find the choice simple (perhaps it should be) and the apartment rules cruelly restrictive, but this is a single woman living a writer’s life in one of the most expensive cities in the world. And now she’s grappling with the idea of saying goodbye to a major part of her identity because her dear friend and mentor Walter (Bill Murray) died without leaving behind a plan for his beloved dog Apollo (Bing). Or perhaps that’s not entirely true: Iris was the plan. Walter just didn’t tell her that before he killed himself. She’s not even a self-proclaimed dog person.The film is an adaptation of