Warning: this article contains spoilers for The Amateur.

Rami Malek’s new spy thriller, The Amateur, has recently hit theaters, and despite some highly entertaining scenes, the movie actually gave away one of its best in the trailer. The Amateur follows CIA cryptographer Charlie Heller, who decides to strike out on his own when his wife, Sarah, is killed during a terrorist attack in London. Initially working a desk job, Charlie uses his intelligence to force his superiors to give him field training before setting out to murder Sarah’s killers in The Amateur.

While Charlie’s sensitivity is highlighted further by the character learning that he does not have what it takes to pull the trigger on someone, he does have the know-how to kill his targets using other methods before ultimately finding justice in The Amateur‘s ending. It is this balance of grief with action and revenge that makes The Amateur so compelling, but there is one scene that sadly didn’t have the impact it should have.

The Amateur’s Pool Scene Was Terrifying, But It Was Spoiled In The Movie’s Trailer

One Of The Most Impressive Scenes Lost Its Impact

After Rami Malek’s character decides to hunt down his wife’s killers, he finds one, Blazhic, in a luxury H๏τel in Madrid. Learning that Blazhic likes to swim alone each night, Charlie rigs the pool’s glᴀss bottom to break at the push of a ʙuттon. When Blazhic refuses to give Charlie what he needs, Charlie proceeds to kill him in one of the most creative death scenes in any spy movie. While the exploding pool scene was undeniably cool to watch, I can’t help but feel that it actually lost a lot of its importance by appearing in the film’s trailer.

Charlie not being able to shoot people is a big part of his character and makes the kills much more creative. This becomes clear early on when Charlie traps Gretchen in a hypobaric chamber and fills it with pollen, but the pool scene is the best example. If audiences didn’t know that was going to happen, it would have been a major shock when that scene came up, but having already seen the best kill just leaves viewers feeling underwhelmed and wanting more when it actually happens.

How The Amateur’s Pool Scene Was Filmed – Is It A Real Location?

The Pool Is Actually Part Of A Real Residential Building

Some of the intensity of the pool scene may have been lost thanks to it appearing in the trailer, but how The Amateur‘s team managed to film it is still very cool. The rooftop pool does exist, and it is part of the Embᴀssy Gardens residential buildings in London. The film’s director, James Hawes, shared with The Hollywood Reporter that while parts of the scene were necessarily done using CGI, a lot of it was actually captured on camera in a way that helped the moment feel authentically terrifying.

Hawes shared that the team built “a life-size section of it in the studio so that [they] could explode it and drop it,” making the pool shattering look real. Dan Wilson, a producer, also shared with The Hollywood Reporter that the pool’s collapse was filmed in one sH๏τ so they wouldn’t have to reset. Knowing how difficult it was to pull that scene together, it makes sense that The Amateur‘s creators would want everyone to see the impressive result. However, it still would have felt more gratifying if The Amateur had saved one of its best scenes for theaters.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter