With a story based around the Business Plot – a 1933 pro-fascist conspiracy in the US – it follows three friends who find themselves accidentally caught up in those events, with two of them accused of the murder of a young woman who had hired them to investigate the death of her father, a respected American general.
The three are Burt, a half Catholic/half Jewish doctor, effectively ordered to WWI France by his bigoted in-laws who rather hope he’ll just conveniently die there; African-American soldier Harold, who has been at the forefront of fighting back against the racist abuse of white officers leading the regiment; and Valerie, a nurse who makes art out of the shrapnel that she digs out of the bodies of soldiers while saving them.
Burt and Harold are both seriously injured and nursed back to health by Valerie, before the trio decamps to Amsterdam with the war over, where Valerie knows people who can help fund their further recuperation and relevant help (Burt needs a false eye, for instance).
The group finds an energising sense of life in the Dutch city, but Burt decides to return to the States to help other returning veterans there. Back in New York and finding ways to deal with his own trauma, he’s imprisoned for being drunk – medication, in effect, for his physical and mental pain. On hearing the news back in the Dutch city, Valerie says she can get him out of prison – but it means her leaving Harold in Amsterdam, with no real explanation.
When they eventually unite, it is when Burt and Harold are accused of murder.
Can they find a way to clear themselves against dark forces?
My main criticism is that Amsterdam is, at 134 minutes, very long. Yet counterintuitively, it’s also difficult to see what one would cut – it never really feels likes there’s any obvious lag. So, good pacing.
What the time taken does allow is serious character and relationship building. We get to know a lot about this central trio – enough to make us care about them. That’s a compliment to David O Russell, both for his script and his direction.
It’s also a compliment to the cast.
Christian Bale (Bert), John David Washington (Harold) and Margot Robie (Valerie) are excellent as the central trio. There is also outstanding ensemble support from Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldña, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Timothy Olyphant, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon and Robert de Niro.
Looking back at this – and having just watched the trailer again to check – I wonder if the lack of a suggestion in the trailer of what this is about is why this film hasn’t performed well thus far? The trailer gives no indication of the political nature of the film – The Other Half and I had both assumed the trouble was around gangs, prohibition etc.
Yet the reality is that this is political enough that it almost makes me think of Brecht. I can think of no other recent films that have highlighted Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex”, for instance.
In many ways, it also feels like a far more like a 'European' movie than a US one.
But coming in the wake of the storming of the Capitol and what we see right now in GB politics – the unaccountable, unelected forces (Tufton Street) fighting to be the rulers of the UK – and elsewhere, where the ‘populist’ rule or where dictators such as Putin wage war, this is a warning from the past, for the future.
When will we ever learn?
Amsterdam is quietly funny – in a very, very delicate human way. It’s not a LOL experience, but it is a very humane film. With very good politics.
All in all – a bleedin’ good watch.
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