TMS Movie Review: Amsterdam
(New Regency / 20th Century Studios)
History repeats itself is what a character says near the end of David O. Russell’s new all-star period satire Amsterdam. But history is repeating itself in regard to Russell himself too. After breaking through as a quirky, moderately successful filmmaker in the late 1990s, to exposing his true colors with infamous, serious off-camera altercations between George Clooney on Three Kings (1999) and Lily Tomlin on I Heart Huckabees (2004), to very nearly getting blacklisted in the mid-2000s. Russell sucked up and behaved well enough for The Fighter (2010) to be made and released to acclaim, and repeated the success with Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and American Hustle (2013). But he instantly went back to his old, tempestuous ways by reportedly giving Amy Adams too hard a time during the making of Hustle. The thing about ‘separating the art from the artist’ is typically you have to make good, solid movies for people to ignore all your terrible crap in real life. In a now #metoo relevant world where social media is also regularly reminding everyone Russell has a disturbing accusation of assault from a niece on top of his hot temper; is his new ensemble dramedy flopping because people think he deserves it, or because it’s just too mediocre?
Similar to American Hustle, Amsterdam begins with a title card that states, “A lot of this actually happened.” And in usual Russell fashion, a lot of the facts are replaced with dramatizations and improvisations. Here, Dr. Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale), Attorney Harold Woodsman (John David Washington) and Nurse Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie) befriend each other while serving WWI in 1918 France. Fifteen years later, they’re brought back together in NYC after two acquaintances of theirs are murdered, and Burt and Harold are falsely the main suspects. From there, we get hijinks and schemes involving Chris Rock, Zoe Saldaña, Andrea Riseborough, Anya Taylor-Joy, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Rami Malek and Russell regular Robert De Niro in some of the colorful supporting roles.
(New Regency / 20th Century Studios)
Amsterdam has a lot of the same ingredients from Russell’s past hits, including way more A-listers than the filmmaker probably needs. The theme, anti-fascism, is always relevant, though a bit heavy-handed here. The supposed pithy dialogue, the tongue-in-cheek political commentary, the sardonic, dry characters, and the constant ad-libs from the cast are present as usual for the writer-director. Only this time practically nothing lands, as if everyone was a little too comfortable and prematurely convinced they were going to win over audiences when the production barely began. None of the comedy works, and both the plot and characters aren’t interesting enough to keep our attention for the two hours of Amsterdam. The editing feels amateurish at certain points and there is the bizarre, distracting choice of Robbie and Malek cast as seemingly biological siblings despite the actors being two different races. Bale, Malek and Taylor-Joy make the best of the misfire by choosing to ham it up on screen; while Robbie runs through about three different inconsistent accents by the end of the picture. Shockingly, Swift isn’t the weak link in the cast [that would go to the obviously bored Washington, in my opinion].
Russell has been pretty hit-or-miss with me in general as an artist. Silver Linings and Hustle were fine, but I think that was mostly because I enjoyed Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence’s chemistry as co-leads. Yet it is bizarre how one filmmaker’s output can drop in quality with just one film. I don’t think Amsterdam is offensively bad or cheap looking, in fact I would say the opposite. If anything, we’re wasted two intriguing interracial couples in the film on boring pacing and redundant direction. But considering Russell’s public reputation, I’m not exactly mourning the failure of Amsterdam either.