A good cast and a clever variation of the man with “particular skills” revenge thriller formula make “The Amateur” an often entertaining slice of spy games hokum.

Rami Malek stars as a CIA crypto analayst and tinkerer who becomes obsessed with tracking down and executing the terrorists who murdered his wife (Rachel Brosnahan). He’s determined to get “The Agency” to train him to do that. And he’s willing to blackmail his bosses to get his way.

The boss (Holt McCallany) may contemptuously discount thin-boned Charlie Heller as someone who couldn’t “beat a 90 year old nun in an arm wrestling match.” The trainer (Laurence Fishburne) assigned to give this blackmailing spook killing skills wants may give him almost no chance of success, even if he’s “overestimating the odds to give you confidence, son.”

But Charlie’s love is strong, his fury runs deep and while his “special skills” may not extend to firearms and fisticuffs, he does know his spytech. He can CCTV ID, track down and find his quarries. He can dream up ingenious ways to off them. And he can spoof his identity, keeping the bad guys and his blackmailed (“cover-up”) CIA bosses in the dark about his travels to London, Marseilles, Istanbul, Spain and Russia.

Screenwriters Ken Nolan (“Blackhawk Down”) and Gary Spinelli (“American Made”) turn the Robert Littell source novel into a tale of coincidences and random connections that can misdirect the viewer into thinking this may upend the formula for such narratives. No such luck.

The day after Charlie “may have looked somewhere I shouldn’t have” on the job, revealing possible wrongdoing at “The Company,” his wife is killed in a terror attack in London.

The CIA isn’t interested in Charlie’s after-hours “puzzle solving” which IDs the four attackers. Like the star “Bear” agent at Langley (Jon Bernthal), they dismiss unimposing Charlie and discount his fervent desire for justice and accountability, and his ability to get it himself.

But since he’s got something he can hang over their heads, they humor him…a little. They can’t have the new head of the agency (Julianne Nicholson) knowing about their assorted “black ops.”

Fishburne’s trainer, Henderson, assures the shrimpy analyst that he’s “no killer.” But we’ve seen Charlie’s “particular” hacking, puzzle solving and mechanical skills. He knows what Charlie’s learned and what he brought to the table beyond an inability to shoot straight.

As Charlie goes rogue and off the grid and terrorists turn up dead, Henderson gets to deliver the movie’s tagline.

“Maybe y’all misjudged this individual.”

Looooove that Fishburne.

There’s always a hacker-helper in such movies. Here, she’s (Caitríona Balfe) a mysterious contact who steals secrets and helps bait Charlie’s prey, one of whom is given all the cunning and cold-blooded calculation Michael Stuhlbarg can give him, with a hint of humanity underneath the calculus.

Bernthal is barely in the picture and Adrian Martinez is introduced as a nerdy work ally and then forgotten. Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) is kept in the story via flashbacks and Charlie’s imagination.

But Malek makes a riveting lead, an ordinary, unimposing man resolving to break character and do something few of us would attempt, much less stomach.

“The Amateur” may be a mixed-bag of coincidences, not-quite-plausible technological traps and narrow escapes, and a tad old fashioned feeling in this post-justice/post-accountability world. But Malek keeps us invested and interested in this quest, putting us in Charlie’s shoes and even in Charlie’s headspace, at times, as he crosses line after line in pursuit of closure than involves a whole lot of killing.

Rating: PG-13, violence, profanity

Cast: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Holt McCallany, Jon Bernthal,
Caitríona Balfe, Michael Stuhlbarg, Julianne Nicholson and Laurence Fishburne.

Credits: Directed by James Hawes, scripted by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, based on a novel by Robert Littell. A Twentieth Century release.

Running time: 2:03