“Amsterdam”: huh…that’s it?

I had great hopes for “Amsterdam” and it is not a complete failure or waste of time but geez, Louise, where is the editing? And the writing? And why do we wonder why John David Washington, a remarkable actor is bled dry of charisma? What is Rami Malek really doing? At least, Christian Bale and occasionally, Margot Robbie are having fun. Robert Deniro even rises to the moment for a bit as an upstanding Gregory Peckish type character. Hell, I even got a kick out of Michael Shannon and Mike Meyers; no, really. Mike Meyers! 

But as an ensemble, no one seemed to click. 

Oh, and Chris Rock is a blast. 

And Taylor Swift! Alas, poor Taylor, Horatio. I knew her (she’s only in the film for a sneeze before …spoilers, should I? Nyah, I don’t care that much about spoiling the movie; I just kind of want to get through this.)

Speaking of Taylors; Anya Taylor-Joy tries to do something, too, but I’m just not sure what.

“Amsterdam” is or should have been a rich journey of a puzzle box of a movie; a kind of international intrigue caper centered on the corporate support for Hitler in the United States in the thirties. This is compelling. The movie is not. 

I give David O. Russell for having his heart in the right place; but it’s not enough if the film is clunky and overlong. I said it’s not a total waste, right? It isn’t. Let’s look at the good stuff first.

Bale. Christian Bale can do no wrong (well, maybe “Terminator: Salvation”?); and here he adds another remarkable performance to his portfolio and it’s a gem! He plays Burt Berendsen, our hero, who as a quasi-quack doctor in the interwar period between the first and second World Wars, has been sucked into a conspiracy that seems to reach into shadowy realms of the wealthy and elite. Bale plays Burt with a genuineness and not a little Jeff Bridges’ Jeffrey Lebowski. 

Burt is not an idiot, but he is intrepid and earnest. He has been tossed out of his wife’s family’s life because he insisted on treating all veterans regardless of ethnicity and background. Eventually, he was able to secure an office where he could dispense, um, experimental treatments to ameliorate various neurological problems and pains. 

His absorption into the mystery of how his friend and former commanding officer was murdered unspools at a too-leisurely pace; but I want to concentrate on the good stuff, right?

Okay, so in brief, Burt and his attorney Harold Woodman (John David Washington) who also served in the same regiment (a regiment of Black soldiers, forced to wear French uniforms so as not to be seen as American), were wounded and nursed back to health by Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie). The three remove to Amsterdam at the war’s end and live a fairly idyllic life until Burt announces that he has to return to the States to do what he can for the vets. Harold and Valerie continue on until he, too, says that he wants to return to finish his studies. Valerie (rightly) points out that it will be impossible for them to be together in the United States and she actually vanishes as he presses her to reveal more about her family. 

Burt and Harold work together over the years but nothing is seen of Valerie in the meantime. 

When Bill Meekins’ (Ed Begley!) daughter Elizabeth (Taylor Swift) approaches Burt to do an autopsy on her father, his old commander, Irma St. Clair (Zoe Saldana, another bright spot) and Burt extract a sizable amount of a milky fluid which later turns out to be the poison that killed him and the plot thickens. 

They meet Elizabeth outside a theater where - oh, the hell with it - she’s shoved in front of a car and perp turns the crowd against Burt and Harold who flee. 

Now, I’ll stop here for a moment because so far, so good; the movie is as fleet as you might think it is from all this. Russell’s approach in the early going is tight, economical and really strong. Things start to get a little flabby as the proceedings continue; but this is sort of the point. The flabbier things get, the more you recognize the grace notes.

Suffice it to say that Valerie has been hiding out in New Jersey over the past fifteen years and is the sister to Tom Voze (Malek, underplaying or overplaying, I can’t be sure) and sister-in-law to Libby Voze (Anya Taylor-Joy, giving the most overacting performance of her career, which is to say, really unusual; I don’t know that it’s bad, per se, just as I’m not willing to say that Rami Malek’s is a bad performance, but neither performance feels true - and that creates a dissonance that is only exacerbated by, well, we’ll get to that momentarily.) Turns out, Libby and Tom have been working on Valerie to squelch her individuality/creativity by hiring a doctor who claims she has an inherited neurological disorder. Valerie is over medicated and hidden away until Burt and Harold show up to see if Tom can get them an interview with retired General Dillenbeck (Robert Deniro, who approaches the role with a studied dignity and no-bullshit attitude - more on that later). 

The shenanigans that ensued until now and will continue to, will include a couple of meetings with Michael Shannon and Mike Myers as intelligence agents for the U.S. and the U.K., Matthias Schoenaerts as a veteran and one of the detectives investigating (and protecting) Burt and his partner, Alessandro Nicola as a racist and not-a-veteran detective, the rather obvious dismissive view Burt’s wife and her family take of him (Andrea Riesborough seems to have a better handle on her shrew than Taylor-Joy on hers; and this gives us a clue to where the bumps in the movie come from).  Once all these plates start spinning, the film frays bit by bit and in some cases, in whole broad jumps. 

I don’t know why, but as the film progresses, Russell has us stay in each successive scene longer and longer. When we first meet Tom and Libby and are re-introduced to Valerie and she and Harold have a moment to catch up/bicker, all this is done relatively quickly, until it’s not. Each moment within this setting overstays by a matter of measures, not beats. And this begins to dog the film throughout. 

It doesn’t help that the characters seem to have been written in fits and starts. Robbie and Washington should have more to work with (Washington, particularly; he’s stranded with a near cypher of a character and thankfully, he’s a strong enough actor to keep it going; by contrast, Robbie has a bit more to work with, but that she has less screen time may have helped.) As I mentioned earlier, Malek and Taylor-Joy, two immensely intelligent actors are given sketches to deal with. We get what they’re doing, we know they’re awful, but they’re just not interesting enough to invest as much time in as Russell gives them. 

The one moment that I thought was going to follow suit and almost did, was when Burt and company finally meet the General. I say “almost”; Dillenbeck doesn’t remember when he met them years before or even Burt from a couple of years before when the General was representing and lobbying for veterans’ rights. The General recalls that he did meet three people back during the armistice and they sang him a song and yes, the three sing the song and prove they are who they say they are and Burt fills the General in on the Society of Five, their sterilization clinic (of which it turns out there are many more) and their ties to the upper echelons of society, much of which the General seems to be aware. Now here’s where we encounter one of those two handers in a film that could have used more like this.

Deniro and Bale first shared a scene in Russell’s “American Hustle”; Bale seemed to be channeling Rupert Pupkin ironically and Deniro played an extremely dangerous mob boss. It was five minutes (or so it felt; it didn’t last long enough for me) of two master actors telling a story effortlessly. Fast forward to Bale and Deniro sharing the screen again and this time, they’re both playing very different people differently but with no less commitment. As Deniro’s Dillenbeck comes to understand the grave nature of everything Burt’s telling him, there’s a moment when Deniro’s eyes do what they’ve been doing for fifty plus years; they do the acting. Deniro’s still but watching and listening and listening deeply; it’s Bale’s show but Deniro has to show up and he does, with gravitas and a determined mien of a guy who’s going to do the right thing even if it costs his life. 

The scene ends when Dillenbeck decides to throw in with the Society of Five (he talks to their representative who’s been trying to talk to him for months) and they choose the venue; Burt’s gala for the veterans. It’s a big deal. The film could have used more moments like this. 

Deniro’s minimalism was a sound counterpoint and ballast to the more unruly threads of a narrative barely holding it together and watching two actors who know what they’re doing is a beautiful thing. However, I also found it too little, too late. 

The dénouement at the Gala is interminable. I can’t recall when a film waited so long to thread a needle and call it a day. It was not suspenseful, lacked urgency, and should have landed with a sense of earned triumph. Sigh. I was glad for Burt, Harold, and Valerie (and Dillenbeck) but really felt like I had just finished a bottle of very flat champagne. 

It’s a great looking film (how could it not be, with Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki behind the camera?) but I can’t recall when a film that should have been a fleet piece of work dragged like it was wearing cement shoes. Valerie’s artworks were cool, Zoe’s Irma was also a fine character study (as much as I enjoy her turn in the MCU, it’s so nice to see her in something human), the recurring gag about Burt’s eye falling out was even amusing, but so much more was just dead air.

Daniel Pemberton, the prolific composer whose other major feature was “See How They Run” does provide a really strong score, but it felt as forced into certain moments as much as anything else here. It’s as if Russell wanted us to appreciate every moment and every point he was making by lingering on until he was sure we’d get it. And that’s a problem that lies with him and only him, since he is the sole writer of “Amsterdam”.

I like Russell, for the most part. Not all of his stuff lands or works for me, but it would be churlish to not recognize his massive talent. However, even massive talents miss the mark from time to time. This was one of those times.

To reiterate, I appreciate Russell’s good intentions. A parable about conspiracies that threaten a coup d’etat is as timely as ever. Based on the Business Plot of 1933, the resonance with current events and our moment almost 90 years later, there’s much to commend in intent. It’s just too bad that the execution falls so very short.