Direction: David O. Russell
Country: USA
Seven years after the dispensable Joy, writer-director-producer David O. Russell releases Amsterdam, assembling an impressive ensemble cast that nothing could do to make his period comedy thriller less underwhelming. The story is based on the Business Plot, a 1933 political conspiracy that intended to install a dictator in the place of the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The topic still applies to our days since constant threats to democracy hover over our heads for some time, but as a film, Amsterdam is a sketchy exercise where every move turns out mediocre, if not downright silly. It never feels authentic.
Working with the director for the third time (following the more successful American Hustle and The Fighter), Christan Bale is Burt Berendsen, a doctor scarred by the war who's not afraid to dive into experimental medicine. He and his former war buddy turned lawyer, Harold Woodman (John David Washington), will have to clear their name when accused of a crime they didn’t commit. For that matter, they have the help of nurse Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie) and a couple of spies (Mike Myers, Michael Shannon).
Too busy crushing his excellent actors under the period mise-en-scène, Russell doesn’t seem to know how to make this story interesting, setting a trap for himself. Amsterdam completely collapses both as comedy and thriller, bogged down in apathy and prosaic temperance. The amazing actors, completely drowned in automatism and formal discipline, are unable to show off feelings. Besides protracted, the film remains too derivative, superficial, and humorless to produce an acceptable outcome.
