Amsterdam – A Star-Studded Misfire

At this point, the news of the film’s poor box office showing in its first weekend should be out now and it’s sad considering the talent in front of the camera at least. That being said, they weren’t exactly put in a position to succeed even if most amounted to cameos. While the star power is there, that is the only thing Amsterdam has going for it but even with that, they essentially don’t matter as the film is arguably the biggest mess in recent memory. From top to bottom, it either doesn’t know or seem sure about what it wanted to say or do and it shows. Digging itself into a hole early on, the film could never get itself out which quickly makes a harder watch, clocking in at 2 1/4 hours. For something with a lot to say, it’s surprising how little sense it all makes. Firstly, the dialog is absolutely atrocious and utter nonsense and second, the story if it could be called one, is a convoluted mess that most audiences will likely just give up trying to follow as they will find themselves in a state of utter amazement by how bad it is.

Making sense out of a film like Amsterdam will be a challenge but is definitely centered around a trio of friends, a doctor named Burt Berendsen (Bale), a nurse named Valerie Voze (Robbie), and a lawyer named Harold Woodman (Washington), whose roots dated back to their time in WWI and a close connection to the city of Amsterdam where there relationship truly blossomed. The three made a pact to have each other’s back no matter what. With the passing of time, things started to change until a murder brought them back together. Little did they know, this was only a small piece of something much larger than the three of them. This is the point that the film is likely to lose a large portion of audiences within its excessive amount of moving parts, including unnecessary characters and subplots that were there with no sense of purpose whatsoever. Where the film ultimately fails is its inability to put all these pieces together in a cohesive enough way.

Star-power aside in what screamed like stunt casting more than anything else, audiences will have a hard time finding themselves caring about Amsterdam has or doesn’t have to offer in any way across its many twists and turns. In essence, the film is simply characters who may or may not be in the same kind of film at the same time uttering what amounts to nonsense that makes little sense in the grand scheme. In spite of all of this, some audiences will still be willing to wait for it to somewhat come together but unfortunately, it never does. The film as a whole is one big mess in every conceivable way. While in some cases, there could be some fun found in that, the opposite is the case here. A lackluster effort for everyone involved, very little worked here. Not only did the film not look right or sound right, it was also badly-edited, badly-paced, badly-written as mentioned, and its performances were bad which will undoubtedly come as a surprise considering the cast assembled as they merely looked lost for the most part. Though at the end of the day, no one ever had a chance to succeed and that begins and ends with the bad directing from Russell and his careless mishandling of just about every aspect of the film.

The best performance of Amsterdam came from Bale as Berendsen. Bringing some energy, the rest of the film around him could never quite reach his level as he often found himself on an island with everyone else. The chemistry of the film’s three leads in Bale, Washington, and Robbie could have been the film’s saving grace, however, this was not the case here as their lack of chemistry saw each do their own thing independent of one another. The film’s absolutely atrocious dialog did not anyone any favors which was most apparent when it came to Bale, Washington, and Robbie who try to make the best of it but can’t.

Amsterdam is a misfire on every level but fans of any member of the case may find enough entertainment here though at the end of the day, they’ve all been in better things and their fans are better off watching any of those instead.

still courtesy of 20th Century Studios

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.