Film Review - Amsterdam
Images courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
A star-studded cast, 1920s decor, bursts of comedy, and a film noir-inspired story come together to make David O. Russell’s new film an enjoyable romp that should be seen on the big screen.
The film has a lot of stars but is only starring: Christian Bale as Burt Berendsen, a doctor who served in the military and now provides plastic surgery services for veterans; John David Washington as Harold Woodman, Burt’s best friend and lawyer who supports him in his business; and Margot Robbie as Valerie Voze, the quasi-femme fatal who fell in love with Washington’s character in Amsterdam. The three indulge in a Jules et Jim-type friendship that they believe only works when they live in Amsterdam. Cast alongside the three is Andrea Riseborough, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Robert De Niro, and Rami Malek, all of whom play minor but crucial roles throughout the film. How Russell managed to provide this kind of star power with each of the actors successful enough to carry a movie on their own is impressive.
If you’re someone who uses the internet, there’s a chance you’ve heard rumblings of director David O. Russell’s tendency for controversy; the allegations come artistically and temperamentally, with a recorded history of extreme and disturbing acts. In a recent interview with Jimmy Fallon, Margot Robbie claimed that a policewoman had to shut down the set multiple times for exceeding filming permits. He finds himself repeatedly in the trend of recycling other directors' styles and telling familiar stories, which is no different from this film. Borrowing heavily from Martin Scorsese’s fast-paced storytelling and taking more than inspiration from Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, the film always feels familiar. In one scene, a character says, “this is the good part”, which feels more like the Rick and Morty parody of gangster films than a new contribution to the genre. Russell’s visual idiosyncrasies feel more like mistakes than cinematic flourishes in a style that tries to be cute but can be sluggish. The story attempts to tackle heavy subjects like fascism and power but fails to provide a nuanced and fresh perspective on the issue outside the point that “history repeats itself”. As well as being very liberal in its storytelling, the film is also very liberal with its dialogue, frequently telling the audience rather than hinting or showing. Plot twists are given away early in the story because of the repetitive nature of the film’s dialogue, though this may just be a result of the predictability of the story.
These criticisms aren’t all negative as it still manages to be a highly entertaining watch, though the film may not work as well outside of its theatrical release. The movie has the scale and epic qualities that make it an enjoyable flick to see in cinemas, but the jokes and the, at times, shocking visual imagery may be too much for a couch-bound audience to handle. Sometimes star power alone is not enough to make a movie better; filmmakers must look at the blueprints and reevaluate why a story needs to be told rather than simply telling a story to indulge in style. To a degree, the ridiculous and plagiarised aspects of the story feel self-aware as the pastiche somehow turns to parody. What fails as a hardboiled detective story in the vein of classics turns into two hours and fifteen minutes of a romping dark comedy.
If you’re looking for a night out in the cinemas where you can check out for a couple of hours with popcorn, a choc-top in hand, get in a few good laughs, and you can muster up the guts to see some slight gore, then Amsterdam is the film for your next evening outing.
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Amsterdam is screening in cinemas from Thursday 6th October. For tickets and more info, click here.