Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: David O.Russell
Starring: Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Anya
Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldaña, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, Timothy Olyphant,
Andrea Riseborough, Taylor Swift, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alessandro Nivola,
Rami Malek, Robert De Niro
David O. Russell's Amsterdam opens with a title
card that informs us "A lot of this really happened." Roughly 15 minutes
later we get a freeze frame as a narrator intones something along the
lines of "You're probably wondering how I got myself in this situation…"
Yes, it's not the most original movie, but it does deal with a dark
period of American history that has been largely glossed over, though to
elaborate would probably lead to accusations of "Spoilers!!!" against
this writer.
The year is 1933 and the aforementioned narrator is Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale), a former military doctor who now runs a struggling New York practice
where he treats wounded veterans. During World War One, Burt was
assigned to a special Dirty Dozen-esque unit comprised of
African-American soldiers, one of whom, Harold Woodsman (John David Washington), is now a lawyer committed to representing veterans. When Burt and
Harold's old squadron leader dies in mysterious circumstances, the
latter asks the former to perform an autopsy. Digging around in the
man's innards, Burt finds signs of poisoning. When the dead man's
daughter (Taylor Swift) is run over on a New York street, Burt
and Harold are blamed and go on the run, hoping to find the truth and
clear their names.
What does all this New York business have to do with the titular
European capital? Well, as detailed in a lengthy flashback, Burt and
Harold found themselves in a Belgian hospital during the war, with the
former losing an eye and having it replaced by a glass stand-in. There
they met and fell for the charms of Valerie (Margot Robbie), an
American socialite who left home for European adventures. Discharging
the two men, Valerie took them to live with her in Amsterdam, where they
enjoyed a relationship that hints at a ménage a trios, but this being a
mainstream Hollywood movie, it's all very chaste. Had it not been for
some more of Burt's lazily written narration, you'd never know that
Harold and Valerie were an item, because this being a mainstream
Hollywood movie, there's a reluctance to show a black man and a white
woman enjoying each other's physical company. Back in 1933, Burt and
Harold run into Valerie, whom they had long ago lost contact with, and
the hijinks begin.
Except there aren't really any hijinks to speak of. For a movie that
presents itself as a zippy caper, Amsterdam is tediously
sluggish. Russell's overwritten script relies almost entirely on
dialogue for its plot developments, with scene after scene of our lead
trio listening to various characters explaining the plot. The various
characters they run into are presented visually as escapees from a 1930s
screwball comedy, but the leaden, functional dialogue never reflects
that aesthetic. Only Mike Myers, playing a stuffy British spy,
seems to understand what sort of movie he's acting in. I can't say I've
been a fan of his brand of gurning comedy down the years, but he really
is very good here, elevating the movie every time he appears on
screen by humanising a character written as a stereotype.
If Mike Myers is the best thing about your film, well that's not a
great sign, is it? Especially when you have a cast stacked with the
likes of Robbie, Bale, Washington,
Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy, Michael Shannon and
Andrea Riseborough. It's the central trio that disappoint the
most, for despite how much the movie tells us they share this loving
bond, there's a complete lack of chemistry between the three performers,
all of whom come across like they're acting in different movies. Bale is
basically doing a comedic Peter Falk impersonation, Washington is so
deadpan that he's almost sleepwalking through the movie, while Robbie is
overly reliant on her girlish charm. The dynamic isn't so much Jules et
Jim as dull and dim.
[Spoiler] It's eventually revealed
that our heroes have gotten themselves caught up in what came to be
known as the Business Plot, a conspiracy to overthrow President
Roosevelt and install a government sympathetic to Hitler and Mussolini.
It all culminates in De Niro, playing a fictional version of a real life
general who helped to expose the plot, delivering a
Great Dictator-esque speech that seems to take forever to say little more than "Nazis
aren't nice." It all comes off as a cringey piece of Hollywood
sermonising, but it ironically comes in a movie that constantly uses a
character's disability as a punchline, and one which doesn't have the
balls to embrace the inter-racial relationship at its centre. [Spoiler ends]