A film review by Craig J. Koban October 18, 2022

AMSTERDAM ½

2022, R, 127 mins.

Christian Bale as Burt Berendsen  /  Margot Robbie as Valerie Voze  /  John David Washington as Harold Woodman  /  Robert De Niro as General Gil Dillenbeck  /  Anya Taylor-Joy as Libby Voze  /  Rami Malek as Tom Voze  /  Chris Rock as Milton King  /  Zoe Saldaña as Irma St. Clair  /  Mike Myers as Paul Canterbury  /  Michael Shannon as Henry Norcross  /  Timothy Olyphant as Taron Milfax  /  Andrea Riseborough as Beatrice Vandenheuvel  /  Taylor Swift as Liz Meekins  /  Matthias Schoenaerts as Detective Lem Getweiler  /  Alessandro Nivola as Detective Hiltz  /  Ed Begley Jr. as General Bill Meekins

Let's get one thing out of the way right from the get-go: 

AMSTERDAM is stacked. 

Like...really stacked. 

We got writer/director David O. Russell - making his first feature film in seven years after previously scoring large critical splashes with THE FIGHTER, AMERICAN HUSTLE, and SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK.  We got an all-star cast of A-listers that includes (takes a deep breath) Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Robert De Niro, Michael Shannon, Andrea Riseborough, Rami Malek, Zoe Saldana and - holy crap! - SNL alumni Chris Rock and Mike Myers!  We also have a remarkably high budget approaching nearly $100 million (that ain't chump change as far as turn of the last century period murder mystery/espionage caper films go).  And finally, we also have a fact based tale that dabbles into a real political conspiracy that has some definitive modern day parallels. 

AMSTERDAM is really stacked.   

Having said that, why is this film so damn dull and mostly uninspired? 

I was plagued with this question all throughout my screening of Russell's latest, which serves as yet another letdown after his last film - 2015's disappointing JOY - was anything but memorable.  But there's so much good in AMSTERDAM, like its rich and textured performances and its staggeringly good production design and period decor, all of which are commandingly on point.  But, gee whiz, Russell's script here is a meandering and dizzyingly overstuffed and convoluted mess of tones and ideas, and it seemingly throws in everything but the kitchen sink and bombards viewers by thrusting them in a million different directions to the point of confusion.  There's so much movie in this movie, and for the most part Russell can't seem to hone in on what kind of movie he's trying to make.  Is AMSTERDAM intended to be a Coen Brothers-esque period farce?  A crime caper comedy?  A whodunit murder mystery?  A political thriller about an actual attempt by fascists to overthrow the U.S. government prior to World War II?  The answer is...well...all of the above, which makes the film sometimes hard to sit through and difficult to process.  Very few films from Russell have made me lose interest in them within the first 30 or so minutes, but AMSTERDAM regrettably did.   

The story opens with one of those wacky, wink-wink title cards that states "A lot of this actually happened," the most important of which being the Depression-era movement to replace President FDR with someone else that might be cozier to a particular dictator in the making in Germany (hmmmmm...none of this was featured in the film's advertising).  It's the early Dirty Thirties when we meet Burt (a crackerjack Christian Bale), who's a doctor that works with many of his fellow WWI veterans to fix their facial deformities suffered by the horrors of trench warfare (Burt himself lost an eye in the war to end all wars).  Burt's quest is noble minded, but he's no saint, seeing as he frequently gets stupid high on his own medicine to get himself through the day.  He manages to hook up with one of his buddies from the war in Harold (John David Washington) and once reunited they're both hired by Liz (and out of place Taylor Swift) to perform an autopsy of her crazy rich and powerful father, Bill (Ed Begley Jr.), who perished under suspicious circumstances.   

And - wouldn't ya know it! - Burt does discover foul play in the form of poisoning, but on the way to rush out and give Liz his findings she's pushed right into a speeding truck on the street and killed instantly.  Chaos erupts on the scene, but poor Burt and Harold are framed for the murder and are forced to go on the run.  Realizing that they must clear their names as quickly as possible, Burt and Harold start to follow any clue trail that's available to them, assisted by a pal of Burt's in Irma (Zoe Saldana), who was instrumental in aiding Burt in his autopsy findings.  The two men finds themselves involved in another reunion with Valerie (Robbie), a combat nurse that helped both of them heal from their dreadful war wounds back in the day.  While Harold struggles to process his feelings of abandonment for the woman he was falling for years ago (Valerie abruptly left him when their relationship was progressing to the next level), Burt and Valerie speak with her brother Tom (Malek) and his wife Libby (Taylor-Joy) about their next move, but Tom is reluctant to get in too deeply.  A Hail Mary move is required with revered General Gil Dillenbeck (De Niro), who fights the good fight for veteran's benefits and agrees to help the on-the-run men and prove their innocence, but in the process they all unpack a dreaded conspiracy that could topple the fabric of peace and democracy in America. 

The main trifecta of Bale, Robbie, and Washington are what kept me (even when I tried to stave of frequent watch checking) fully invested in AMSTERDAM, with Bale in particular given free reign to engage in yet another chameleon-like piece of deep dive immersion to play this eccentrically loopy doctor that has gotten himself and his pal in over their heads.  He's matched well by Robbie, who has demonstrated time and time again that she can lock horns and stand toe to toe with just about any actor sharing the screen with her.  Serving as a foil to them both is Washington, who's sort of the collected and plain spoken straight man, of sorts, to the more unpredictably madcap quirks of his co-stars.   The ensemble around this trio is, as mentioned, top tier and are all universally good here too, especially Malek and Taylor-Joy's disgustingly spoiled husband and wife as well as the highly odd, but effective pairing of Michael Shannon and Mike Myers as a pair of spies that find themselves intertwined with Burt and Harold's attempts to prove their innocence (Myers and Shannon perhaps aren't in the film enough, but when they do they kind of quietly steal scenes).  And a little bit of De Niro in a low key dramatic role - after years upon years of disastrously terrible appearances in awful comedies - always goes down smoothly too. 

This movie's budget is clearly on screen as well, with Emmanuel Lubezki's lush cinematography complimenting and framing Judy Becker's bravura production design and Albert Wolsky's superb costumes; AMSTERDAM captures the look and flavor of its decade in question with remarkable confidence and panache.  What's not confident, however, is Russell's scripting, which features a considerable amount of intelligent ideas, contemplative and timely themes, and satiric overtones, but they somehow all get blended together in an incongruent mixture that simply doesn't go down smoothly or well.  More often than not, Russell struggles with tone, and when the film tries to get serious with its subject (it is, after all, about murder, WWI, suffering veterans, and a nightmarish conspiracy with homebrewed fascist leaders at the core) it then ricochets towards hammy screwball territory.  The time shifting of the plot doesn't help either, with Russell abruptly skipping back and forth (mostly without much fluidity) between 1933 New York and 1918 Amsterdam (where, by the way, Burt, Harold, and Valerie became that best of buddies post-war), even though I will concede that the best scenes in the film are the ones set in the past and showing all of the frivolous escapades of the three leads in question.  Those moments on their own are quite good, but the manner that they're haphazardly inserted into the rest of the densely plotted comings and goings of the overreaching plot leaves a lot to be desired. 

And perhaps AMSTERDAM takes way, way too long to build up some meaningful momentum not only as an enthralling whodunit, but also as a piece that examines a sobering facet of political history.  There's so much heavy handed exposition that occurs in the first half of the film that it derails a lot of what comes after, and by the time the narrative reaches its climatic act I just felt that AMSTERDAM ended with a whimper instead of a bang.  And to be fair to Russell, the historical politics that he wades through here will have many clear cut ties to what's happening in the contemporary world, especially with the rise of nationalism and fanaticism in parts of the globe.  I think that Russell's finger pointing is worthwhile and accurate, but the methods he uses in said finger pointing seems too obtrusively on the nose and patently obvious.  And when it boils right down to it, the political sermonizing contained within here has the detrimental effect of sabotaging the kookier hijinks of the murder mystery plot and the spirited camaraderie of the three main stars.   In many ways, AMSTERDAM might have been better served as a pure piece of period fiction that jettisoned its reality based elements altogether. Then, maybe, Russell might have really had something here.