How do movie studios lure audiences to cinemas? As a rule, in order to attract a large audience, the studios make films about spectacular and famous historical events. First of all, because the vast majority of potential viewers know about these events. But often the creators want to tell a little-known story that not so many people know about, and the story is not so important, but it is interesting and eventful.
So, the film “Amsterdam” is the exact opposite of this description. The story that he really tells is not known to most viewers, especially outside of America, but the fact is that it is so strange, local and insignificant that it is simply not required to make a film about it with so many famous actors.
The film tells the story of the early thirties, when the owners of large American corporations after Roosevelt came to power, fearing to lose their own money, wanted to overthrow the incumbent president and install a dictator in the country, similar to Nazism in Italy. The main way to achieve his goal was to persuade the retired general to appeal to the nation (primarily to veterans) with a call to overthrow the current government. Of course, this plan was a complete failure. And the initiators of this “mutiny” did not suffer any punishment. That is, the film is based on almost one sentence: “The retired general was offered to make an opposition speech, but he refused.” And on that basis, David O. Russell decided to make a feature film.
Not only is this one of the strangest political events in America in historiography (more like a conflict within the ruling elite), but it also has no historical value. At the same time, the film tries in every possible way to embellish the story, as the opening words say: “A lot of this really happened.”
The film builds its narrative on the basis of the hero Christian Bale (Bert), who, in order to increase the prestige of his family and his wife’s family, goes to war as a nurse, where he meets and befriends Valeria (Margot Robbie) and Harold (John David Washington). After the war, they go to Amsterdam (that’s why the film is called Amsterdam, despite the fact that all the key events take place in the USA), where they just have fun until the hero of Christian Bale decides to go home to New York. But since he lost an eye in the war and seriously injured his back, his own wife no longer needs him. After that, he opens his own clinic for the treatment of the same veterans crippled by the war. But after the murder of their former commander and his daughter, Bert and Harold (who has become a lawyer) begin their investigation to find those
The film starred a huge number of well-known and distinguished actors: Christian Bale, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Rami Malek, even in the second and third plan lit up: Chris Rock, Robert De Niro, Mike Myers. But such eminent actors play completely identical characters, who practically do not change a single gram throughout the entire film. What made such professionals subscribe to such roles is impossible to understand. About all the characters from their first appearance on the screen, everything immediately becomes clear. They are all too friendly, sympathetic, and they are shown so kind and positive that they simply cannot be believed. Only the hero of Rami Malek is an exception to the rule, which turns out to be a negative character, which can be guessed almost from his first appearance on the screen. The only one, who squeezes the most out of his hero is Christian Bale. He fully reveals the kindness of his character, and you really feel for his hero, empathize, and in places you frankly feel sorry for him.
The film’s tagline is: “Let the love, the murder and the conspiracy begin.” Love, in the slogan, is not accidentally put in the first place, the director really wanted to tell the love story of both Bert and Harold. But only Bert’s line was shown convincingly. Bale’s character finds his true love not in his ex-wife, with her selfish goals, but in a simple nurse who loves him for who he is, and not for influential acquaintances. And the Hero of Washington finds his other half at the very beginning of the film in the form of the character of Margot Robbie, but this line does not look convincing, first of all, because it is not confirmed by actions, and it seems that they are in love only because it is written in the script .
“Amsterdam” was largely promoted as a comedy, and for the first half hour the tape declares itself not just as a comedy, but as a black comedy. But in the aftermath, the humor gradually disappears from the film and disappears by the end. The characters practically stop joking, transferring the viewer’s attention to a very predictable plot, which is not boring to follow due to camera work and acting, but not to say that it is very interesting and exciting.
It would seem that the events of the picture unfold in the thirties in America, and it would be possible to reveal the theme of racial discrimination. But apart from a few phrases from the hero Chris Rock on the topic of white people, there are no problems and disagreements on racial grounds between the heroes. Despite the fact that in the thirties a black man, an educated lawyer would have caused people at least surprise. In addition, John David Washington said in an interview that he delved into the study of the history of African Americans in the thirties in order to show the black man of that time as authentically as possible, but this is not at all visible in the film. And, of course, the word “nigger” is never used in the picture. But this is the fault of the current agenda in modern cinema, without which there is nowhere today.
As a result, the film cannot be called bad, it has advantages in the form of music, camera work, acting, despite the characters of the same character, even a rather big timekeeping does not harm the film much, but the key element in the form of a plot negatively affects the perception of this film, and in As a result, the picture simply looks unnecessary. First of all, this is director David O. Russell’s fault, as the actors can obviously play more complex and serious characters, but the director made his characters too cardboard. The story that the picture presents, which in reality, that in the film does not arouse interest, while being utterly predictable. In addition, the director tried to embellish the scale of this conspiracy by making the main conspirators fanatics of Hitler (in the yard in 1934), but in reality they were not fanatics,
Today’s events in the political life of the United States are much more interesting, funnier and will influence the future much more than those presented by the film “Amsterdam”. And who knows, perhaps a film based on today’s events will someday be released.
