20th Century Studios

Rami Malek stars as a CIA “computer nerd” turned unlikely action hero in The Amateur, out in theaters Friday.

After his wife is brutally murdered in a terrorist attack, Charlie Heller decides to take matters into his own hands when his bosses at the CIA don’t seem interested in tracking down her killers.

“Very much an underdog story,” Malek tells ABC News affiliate WPVI. “A very unexpected hero in this genre doing some pretty extraordinary things out of his element.”

Heller teams up with retired Colonel Henderson, played by Laurence Fishburne, who tries to train him for the field, as well as a hacker named Inquiline, played by Caitriona Balfe, who bonds with him over his grief.

“What she does is sort of hold up this sort of mirror to him and kind of questions the morality of what he’s doing and whether or not, you know, revenge is something that will actually give you solace,” Balfe says.

While the film is “full of surprises,” according to Fisburne, the action is ultimately motivated by the love Heller has for his wife, played by Rachel Brosnahan, and we get to see glimpses of that relationship through flashbacks.

“They’re opposites, but they bring out the best in each other,” Brosnahan says. “And I think then when you see that, you feel the weight of that loss as [Charlie] moves through the rest of the film.”

Disney is the parent company of 20th Century Studios and ABC News.