Amsterdam (2022) Contrary to what anyone might think, I don't enjoy being the last blogger to throw a sympathetic flower on the casket of this movie.....which instantly self-detonated into oblivion as soon as it hit theaters.
No one's denying that David O. Russell possesses talent and cinematic craft to burn, as does his cast here. But his results in "Amsterdam" look like he never had a clue about what kind of movie he was making, what it would look like or how his cast should perform in it
Russell appeared to just plow ahead, throw everything against the wall and wait to see if anything stuck.
Let's deal with first half of its 2 hour and 15 minute run time. The film draws on a notorious, absolutely true incident from 1930's America and starkly, scarily prescient, given today's political chaos.
Two severely wounded World War 1 vets (Christian Bale, John David Washington), stumble upon a fascist plot to overturn FDR's Presidency, throw out U.S. democracy and replace it with a permanent dictatorship.
Whew.......thank my sweet Lord that nothing like that could ever happen here in this day and age, right? Right? Oh, wait a sec.......oops.
Sounds like a great starting premise for a kick-ass thriller.....or maybe a quietly grim reflective drama a la "Chinatown."
The movie turns out as neither one of those. It's first half rollicks along like some kind of half-assed, preciously overbaked Wes Anderson/Coen Brothers movie......with the all the actors leaning toward wink-wink performances......(as in "look at us....aren't we the wittiest, cutest things you ever did see?")
Somewhere halfway in, it's as if the gravity of the plot and how it relates to today's cancerous rise of Trumpism and Trumpists finally dawned on Russell and his actors. But not soon enough.
That revelation comes too late to save the rest of the movie from becoming a slow, tedious slog. No more wink-wink.....no more pseudo Wes Anderson crapola....once drained of its semi-comedic energy, the film sinks into an uninvolving morass of pretensions......and lacking any forceful dramatic backbone to hammer home its main points......that the vicious assaults on democracy are nothing new.
By the time "Amsterdam" finishes, it hits you hard at how it frittered away a superbly assembled eclectic cast and potentially powerhouse premise. I should have known what was coming with the surfacing of Taylor Swift, making one of her unmemorable brief appearances that guarantee the film she's in is barreling toward train-wreck territory.
I won't lie......I smiled and maybe even LOL'd once or twice during some of the laborious faux-Wes Anderson stuff. But once the film gave up being cutesy-wutsey and descended into a void, it started to put me to sleep.
1 sad star. (*). Consider this the last flower placed on the grave of a missed opportunity.
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