Movie Review Amsterdam

Amsterdam (2022) 

Directed by David O. Russell 

Written by David O. Russell 

Starring Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Robert De Niro, Rami Malek

Release Date October 7th, 2022 

Published October 11th, 2022 

I'm late to the party on the new David O. Russell film Amsterdam. I didn't get an early preview of the movie and that gave me time to soak in some of what other critics have said. That also means I can look at the current discourse around the film, following its opening weekend at the box office, and offer a fair parsing of the movie as headlines in the online sphere hail Amsterdam as a bomb and a box office debacle and calling for the head of David O. Russell for daring to lose money for a Hollywood studio. 

Yes, Amsterdam is projected to lose around $100 million dollars once the box office dust settles. This means nothing more than the marketing campaign for the film was a flop and doesn't reflect anything about the movie itself. I think Amsterdam has some significant flaws but it is a well accomplished movie, perfectly on brand for David O. Russell and featuring several big stars delivering terrific performances amid a very clever, very funny, and wildly absurd and rage inducingly true story. 

Why is it that the movie as a whole takes the blame when the marketing fails? Let's be clear, the marketing of Amsterdam was a failure. The marketing failed to capture the best and most widely appealing aspects of the movie. For instance, the marketing fails completely at taking advantage of the romance between John David Washington and Margot Robbie and that is arguably the best element of Amsterdam, certainly its the most relatable and tangible element of this quirky tonally awkward absurdist comedy. 

Another reasonable question that is not being asked is why a studio spent so much on a story that was going to be a hard sell no matter how many movie stars are in the cast. Amsterdam is a film that succeeds or fails based on your taste for absurdly wordy dialogue, quirky characters, and other unconventional forms of satire. The studio behind Amsterdam have no excuses to hide behind, they could not have approved this script and this director without seeing the tough sell they had on their hands. 

For me, Amsterdam is a tough sell that I was sold on while experiencing it. I had little idea what I was getting myself into when I saw it, because the marketing campaign does little to prepare you for the movie, and I was won over in the end by the odd yet earnest and passionate film that David O. Russell and his team put together. The film is often mystifying and occasionally frustratingly obtuse but it works thanks to this incredible cast and a story so wild you will have a hard time believing it is true. 

Fans of The Dollop Podcast might recognize the story being told in Amsterdam. General Smedley Butler is a little remembered American hero. General Butler was a bit of an oddball but he proved himself as a leader on the bloody battlefields of World War 1. He, in fact, fought in five wars for his country over the years prior to World War 2. In the 1920s he became a hero of his fellow veterans when he supported the so-called Bonus Army, soldiers who simply asked the government for the money they were promised to go and fight World War 1. 

Butler's passionate defense of veterans made him a leader who could command his own army of former soldiers if he chose to do so. This was the opening that many in the business community, high end CEO's slowly carving up early 20th century America among themselves. They targeted Butler as a man who could displace President Roosevelt whose New Deal politics were taking money from the pockets of the wealthy to bring the poor out of poverty. 

These wealthy men preferred the approach Germany and Italy were taking wherein power was being concentrated at the top and dictators gave favorable deals to those they felt were worthy. Smedley Butler was their choice for puppet dictator of the United States and it is genuinely terrifying just how close to a fascist dictatorship America came. Had it not been for the integrity of General Smedley Butler our country couldd have been changed forever in the worst possible ways. 

Amsterdam is not exactly about what came to be known as The Business Plot. Rather, Russell approaches the true life story through the fictional and comic lens of these three oddballs who met and became life long friends in Amsterdam, in the wake of World War 1. Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) is a doctor who was urged to join the army and fight in World War 1 by his rich in-laws who felt that a war hero would befit the ideal of the family in the public imagination. Harold (John David Washington) is a lawyer who was conscripted into the military and fought to be treated as equals with white soldiers. 

Burt and Henry are brought together by General Meeker (Ed Begley Jr.) who places Burt in charge the mostly black regimen where Harold is sequestered. Together, they make a pact to watch each other's back. If Burt proves to be a leader who takes care of his black soldiers, Henry will assure Burt that those same soldiers won't shoot him in the back. Burt accepts this as a fair trade and they go to war where they are severely injured. In Paris, the two are treated by Valerie, a volunteer medical worker on the run from her past. 

When the war ends, the three head off to Amsterdam to live the lives of hedonists and friends. In Amsterdam, Burt and Henry are introduced to a pair of secretive men whose work stands firmly between stopping the spread of fascism and the somewhat shady tactics of spy services. Mike Myers ad Michael Shannon play a pair of bird obsessed secret agents who use birdwatching as a cover for what we presume is spy activity. Myers and Shannon's characters protect our trio of friends in Amsterdam in exchange for an unspecified favor in the future. 

After 6 months of partying in Amsterdam and recovering from their wounds, Burt, who was badly scarred and lost an eye in the war, decides to return to America. With his newfound knowledge of European medicine and types of treatments, Burt hopes to help treat soldiers struggling to fit back into society after the war. Henry wishes to stay in Amsterdam with Valerie, the two clearly fall in love at first sight, but she soon vanishes and leaves Henry to return to New York alone to work alongside Burt. 

When the duo are hired to investigate the murder of their former General, General Meeker, the conspiracy plot begins to unfold. Robert De Niro stands at the center of the plot as a General caught between doing the right thing and the wealthy men who hope to use him as their puppet dictator to install a fascist government in the place of President Roosevelt. With the veterans who trust and follow him, De Niro's General has a standing army ready to fight with him and he must decide if he's for sale to sell out his country or if the truth and his integrity is more important. 

Realistically, yes, Robert De Niro has by far the most interesting character in Amsterdam. The characters portrayed by Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie are all fine but it is De Niro as the General who recognizes what the underdogs are up against and his place within that conflict. And that is a complicated and lengthy description of a complicated plot. Do you now have a better sense of the marketing challenge of Amsterdam? Exactly how do you reduce this idea to 30 second commercials? I feel it can be done but the marketing team behind Amsterdam appears to have given up far too quickly. 

Click here for my full length review of Amsterdam. 

Movie Review The Fighter

The Fighter (2010) 

Directed by David O. Russell

Written by Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Scott Siliver 

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo

Release Date December 10th, 2010 

Published December 7th, 2010

'Irish' Mickey Ward's battles with Arturo 'Thunder' Gatti are three of the greatest in ring wars that the boxing world has seen in the past 2 or 3 decades. These two warriors bloodied and battered each other for 12 rounds in three consecutive fights, two of which were named by Ring Magazine as fight of the year. The second fight likely would have also won fight of the year if it had not taken place the same year as the first.

How Micky Ward rose to those fights against Gatti, the apex of his career, is the story of “The Fighter” a sports drama from director David O. Russell and starring Mark Wahlberg in a role that he trained for four years for; all while trying to wrangle a director, turned down by Scorsese, abandoned by Darren Aronofsky, and a studio to make the movie.

As we join the story of “The Fighter” Micky Ward (Wahlberg) is a scuffling welterweight fighter in the midst of a losing streak. Many in the boxing world peg Ward's troubles to his brother/trainer Dicky Eklund a failed pro fighter who peaked in the late 70's in a fight with the legendary Sugar Ray Leonard before succumbing to crack addiction.

More than a decade after his boxing peak Dicky holds out hope of making an in ring comeback, a lie perpetuated by Micky and Dicky's mom/manager Alice (Melissa Leo). For now however, Dicky wastes hours and days in a dingy crack house when he is supposed to be prepping Micky for a bout on national television in Atlantic City.

The fight is a debacle as the fighter that Ward was supposed to face dropped out due to illness. The replacement is a full weight class above Micky but because no one will get paid if he doesn't fight, Dicky and Alice push Micky into the ring and Micky's career is nearly ended. This conflict unfolds in the first act of “The Fighter” and director David O. Russell elegantly flows these burgeoning conflicts into the second act where Dicky gets arrested, Micky gets hurt in the melee around Dicky's arrest and the family is shattered.

What separates “The Fighter” from your average sports movie? Not much really, despite a heavyweight cast “The Fighter” is essentially, at its heart, a classic sports movie. Director David O. Russell's challenge then was to find little ways for “The Fighter” to break the mold of the typical and he finds that in an indie style, low budget look that fits the rundown setting of aging Lowell Massachusetts, Micky and Dicky's longtime hometown.

Another departure from the typical sports movie comes in the clever mimicry of Micky Ward's actual fights. David O. Russell teamed with the real life sports director from HBO for scenes depicting Micky's Championship fight against Brit Shea Nealy. Using the actual call of the fight from the HBO boxing announcers brings an extra bit of authenticity to the brutal fight scene and underscores the reality of what we are seeing in the ring.

So many boxing movies amp up the noise of the punch or speed up the action to a point where two men could not possibly punch each other continuously without passing out from exhaustion; but not here, not in this movie. Restrained by Mark Wahlberg's strict adherence to the way Micky Ward actually fought and kept in pace by the actual call of the fights as they happened back in the late 90's, the boxing in “The Fighter” looks and feels true.

Also feeling true in “The Fighter '' is the family of Micky Ward. David O. Russell could not have been more blessed with a cast. Oscar nominees Melissa Leo and Amy Adams, who plays Ward's tough as nails girlfriend Charlene, are an electronic duo who clash personalities like a car wreck on the Lowell Parkway. Melissa Leo is backed up by an army of unknown actresses who take on the roles of Micky and Dicky’s sisters and their authentic look, just slightly behind the times, and their raw trailer park energy make their scenes as lively as any in “The Fighter.”

Christian Bale is the stand out as Dicky, a flashy role that Bale nevertheless makes real with his mastery of the real Dicky Eklund a gregarious yet troubled soul who maintained a strong sense of humor and self even as he was in the grips of addiction. That is attested to in a 1994 documentary that aired on HBO about Dicky's addiction to crack. "High on Crack Street" played a big part in Bale's research of the role as did the presence of the real Dicky Eklund who Bale bonded with off-screen.

The underrated MVP of “The Fighter” is Mark Wahlberg not for his performance which is hampered somewhat by being the least colorful of a group of colorful characters but for the work he did in dedicating himself to telling this story. Wahlberg grew up not too far from where Micky Ward did and like Micky he found trouble early in his own life only to get things turned around in a big way.

Wahlberg had to tell this story and you can see his blood, sweat and tears determination to get Ward right in every frame of “The Fighter.”

If the film is ultimately a conventional sports movie so be it, “The Fighter” has the heart and energy of the best of the genre but with David O. Russell, Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg breaking their backs to tell this story there is something more here, an intangible quality that sets “The Fighter” apart and lifts it well above just a sports movie.

Movie Review Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playlist (2012) 

Directed by David O. Russell

Written by David O. Russell

Starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jackie Weaver, Chris Tucker

Release Date November 16th, 2012 

Published November 15th, 2012 

Manic people can change the temperature of any room they are in with their mood. Not literally of course, but anyone who's been in a room with a manic personality has experienced the unbelievable warmth and good humor that moments later becomes an icy cold stare based on something only the manic personality is aware of.

The dramatic comedy "Silver Linings Playbook," written and directed by David O. Russell is the rare film to capture this unique change in temperature. Bradley Cooper's Patrick is a manic personality whose mood swings seem to control the very atmosphere of any room he inhabits.

White Knuckle Determination

Pat was once just a chubby Philadelphia schoolteacher with a struggling marriage and a mental illness he kept in check through white-knuckle determination. That determination was not enough to keep Pat from nearly murdering the man whom he caught having sex with his wife in his own home when he came home from work early one day.

Cut to eight months later and Pat is being released from a mental institution. Pat's mother Dolores has, against doctor's orders, decided to take legal responsibility for him and bring him home. Unfortunately for Dolores, Pat has no interest in following the rules of his release, including taking his meds and seeing a shrink. Instead, Pat intends to get in shape and win back his wife; regardless of the restraining order she has against him.

Manic, Filter-less, Motormouth

Pat's plan is altered greatly by the introduction of Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a manic personality in her own right, though not nearly as volatile as Pat. Tiffany's manic nature comes from the sudden death of her husband. Months of having people step lightly around her and her problems, Tiffany finds Pat's manic, filter-less motor-mouth refreshing.

Tiffany then sets her heart on winning Pat over. Here is where writer-director David O. Russell really begins to get comfortable with this story. The first 30 to 35 minutes of the film he establishes Pat's nature via his relationship with his parents, Dolores, the cheerleader and his father Pat Sr. (Robert DeNiro), who's own anxieties are a clear influence on Pat's nature.

A Lively, Strange Romance

Once Pat and Tiffany become the center of the story "Silver Linings Playbook" becomes a lively, strange romance with the off-beat rhythm of Russell's under-appreciated "I Heart Huckabees" and the rom-com warmth of his oddball romance "Flirting with Disaster." One can also see the commercial influence of Russell's greatest hit, the Academy Award nominated "The Fighter," in the late moments of "Silver Linings Playbook" and the combination is thrilling to watch.

"Silver Linings Playbook" is the perfect David O. Russell movie. The characters are a reflection of his interests, flawed, struggling human beings striving to be better while often standing in their own way. Pat strives toward what he calls a 'Silver Lining' and it is a credit to Russell that this aphorism is never really explained and only means something to Pat.

Appealing and Entertaining

Bradley Cooper's performance in "Silver Linings Playbook" can easily be overlooked. Much of Pat's manic personality is expressed through Russell's camerawork and the brilliant classic rock score that feels as if it is emerging from Pat's fevered mind. That said, it's Cooper who has to convince you fully of Pat's volatile qualities as wells as his relatable, lovable qualities and he does that in a most appealing and entertaining way.

Cooper is aided greatly by a generous performance by Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lawrence. We find a strange sort of balance in Pat when he's with Tiffany and while we recognize it immediately, it's exciting to watch Pat slowly realize it throughout the rest of the movie. These two damaged souls are perfect together and unlike so many romantic comedy pairings, that perfection isn't forced into being but allowed time to breath and build.

The Return of Robert DeNiro

Add Robert DeNiro's finest work in years and you have quite a remarkable movie. Over the last decade, I had come to believe that DeNiro was coasting on his own legend. Watching some of DeNiro's recent work you see an actor not fully engaged, an old man too tired to do the work needed to transcend the way he did as a younger, fresher and more committed performer.

Something in the direction of David O. Russell lit a fire under DeNiro in "Silver Linings Playbook" and for the first time since maybe "Goodfellas" that twinkle in DeNiro's eye is more than just the memory of his past greatness. The passion and energy that DeNiro brings to Pat Sr. matches the volatility and sadness of Cooper's manic character and the father son dynamic they create is both awkward and illuminating.

Director and Character Unite

It's easy to suggest that "Silver Linings Playbook" comes from a very personal place for David O. Russell. Outside of his writing and directing Russell is known for his volatility with actors and critics. It's easy to speculate that Russell finds something of himself in the character of Pat and it gives him an insight into the character that others may not have. It would be foolish to diagnose Russell manic or bi-polar from afar but the evidence presented in "Silver Linings Playbook" indicates an insight others don't have.

Were Russell to share a degree of Pat's illness it would only serve to deepen the film's final act. As Pat finds something akin to peace, maturity and perspective, so has Russell seemed to gain something similar over the arc of his career. "Spanking the Monkey," "Flirting with Disaster,"Three Kings" and "I Heart Huckabees" were made by an uncompromising artist committed to a very specific vision and willing to physically defend that vision. Then, after reaching his most volatile with 'Huckabees,' a new perspective and maturity took hold and led to "The Fighter," his greatest success.

"Silver Linings Playbook" has the best of both of David O. Russell's worlds. The vision that made Russell an artist and the maturity that made him successful. The parallel journey of director and character in "Silver Linings Playbook" is remarkable to watch and part of what makes this one of the best movies of 2012.