Movie Details
Amsterdam (2022)
Director: David O. Russell
Cast-Christian Bale: Plays Burt Berendsen
Margot Robbie: Plays Valerie Voze
John David Washington: Plays Harold Woodman
Robert De Niro: Plays General Gil Dillenbeck
Anya Taylor-Joy: Plays Libby Voze
Rami Malek: Plays Tom Voze
Chris Rock: Plays Milton King
Zoe Saldaña: Plays Irma St. Clair
Andrea Riseborough: Plays Beatrice Vandenheuvel
Michael Shannon: Plays Henry Norcross
Mike Myers: Plays Paul Canterbury
Taylor Swift: Plays Elizabeth Meekins
Alessandro Nivola: Plays Detective Hiltz
Movie type- Comedy/Mystery
Release date- 7 October 2022
IMDB Rating-6.1
Languages- English
Duration-2 Hour 14 Minutes
Trailer
Synopsis
It sometimes happens that I’m scathing and mean in my reviews about films that have disappointed me, only to give them a numerical grade of five or six out of ten, because the truth is that within the genre or in competition with significantly worse works, at least they can boast of a mastered the craft side, solid acting, and a somewhat functional story that just won’t let me go any lower. For a long time, I thought that this would be exactly the case with the new film Amsterdam by director David O. Russell (Love Therapy, Dirty Trick). Unfortunately, I now know that it is not quite like that.
Amsterdam tells the story of three friends – two World War I veterans and an American nurse serving in France – who foil one of the craziest conspiracies in American history. The story is real, but it was understandably supplemented by some fictitious passages in the film. Russell then invited Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie to play the main roles, around whom Robert De Niro, Zoe Saldana, Chris Rock, Timothy Olyphant, Rami Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, Taylor Swift, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers or perhaps Matthias Schoenaerts. And know that this whole star cast is absolutely useless, because Amsterdam really is the ultimate case of creative impotence, the likes of which the world has not seen in a long time.
I guess there’s no other way to describe it than that the film has a script that someone wrote while he was down, and a direction that someone did while he was asleep. In addition – and I especially try to avoid this in reviews, but here it’s no different – it’s 135 minutes long drawn-out boredom full of interesting characters on paper, but in the end they are simply useless and/or decorative. What works is the chemistry between the central trio, although the romance between Robbie and Washington sounds rather forced in places, as a film about a group of friends, this trio pulls it off purely on its own charisma. The problem is that Russell, who is otherwise known for telling complicated plots with complex characters without sounding lost, just fails here in every possible way.
What with the fact that the tone of the film is never clearly established. Is it a comedy? Drama? Crime? It’s everything and nothing, and in the end, the effort to connect to this very special energy that the picture radiates beat me into complete submission. But be that as it may, I would have forgiven the film even if it had at least given me something substantial or clever, or at least entertained me for the two hours with a whirlwind of explosive dialogues from the mouths of such aces as Bale or De Niro. But instead, a kind of variation on a detective story with an unreliable narrator is being built here, but he is unreliable not because he tells lies, but because he grinds past nine o’clock and after half an hour it is not at all clear what he actually wants to say. It has no action, no tension, and no fallout.
It doesn’t even have an atmosphere, at least not the kind you’re used to in similar period dramas. The picture is extremely monothematic both in colors and work with the environment. You would never guess that Emmanuel Lubezki was operating the camera. In their scenes, the actors give the impression that they have to improvise, because they are missing not individual words in the script, but entire passages of the text. Mainly, the story goes on in a horrifying way until the end, where it becomes such an absurd chaos that it doesn’t really matter how short-cut and unintentionally embarrassing specific scenes seem. The main thing is that they are there, and the film can give the impression that someone did not do it smartly.
Play the trailerAfter two hours I could only say two things. First, that composer Daniel Pemberton can apparently compose a moving soundtrack to even the dullest of farces, and second, that Amsterdam should be taught in schools as an example of how not to make movies. I can’t tell you why it turned out the way it did. I myself am not at all sure of what I actually saw. The only significant points to the good of the film are that it uncovered a really interesting chapter of history. However, if he did it in a way that was watchable, listenable, and not constantly irritated by the ever-present digressions and a dreamy ensemble cast that clearly had nothing to play, I’d probably much prefer it. I just shake my head sadly and give a thumbs down.
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