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There’s an anecdote that every Star Wars fan has heard at some point about George Lucas’ directing style. According to Carrie Fisher, when filming the only direction that Lucas would give would be to deliver the dialogue “faster and more intense” leading to moments like Luke’s monosyllabic read of “but they’re gonna kill her” or “But I was going into Toche Station to pick up some power converters” that exist in the final cut of the movie to this day. This is relevant because it appears that David O. Russell took a page from Lucas’ book when it came to making this movie and, unfortunately, the wonky performances from the cast are the beginning and end of where this film has entertainment value.
Amsterdam follows Burt (Christian Bale) and Harold (John David Washington) as they try to clear their names with the help of their old friend Valerie (Margot Robbie) after they are accused of murder. Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Taylor Swift, Zoe Saldana, Robert De Niro, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, and Rami Malek also star.
First and foremost, there are fundamental problems with the movie on a technical level that are hard to get around. There are awkward cuts, moments where the dialogue is not synchronized to the person talking in the scene, and times where there is too long of a gap between people talking in a dialogue, making it feel almost like a Tell-Tale video game where there is a delay awaiting player input. There is also the issue where every single character talks the same and it feels like a Joss Whedon movie in the worst possible way. Every character quickly shouts their dialogue, making it a very loud mess of a voiceless experience.
There is a weird pivot that happens around halfway through the movie that also does not exactly feel like an organic plot progression from where the movie starts to where it ends up. What starts out as an interesting exploration of these various characters eventually devolves into a fictionalization of a real-world events from the era in a way that seems silly, especially considering that dramatizing the real story would have been just as interesting. The third act ends up grinding to a complete halt to accommodate some heavy-handed political messaging rather than resolving the inciting incident in a meaningful and satisfying way.
There are a few comedic moments in the movie but a good amount of these moments are given away in the trailers or tv spots that have been nonstop over the last few months. Christian Bale and a good amount of the cast do give great performances, however there is very little chemistry between Margot Robbie and John David Washington, which is cumbersome since it is the main romantic relationship of the narrative.
If someone is looking for something to see in theaters this long weekend (and it is honestly baffling that this release date was pushed to this date from November 4th to not compete with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), there are not too many options of them considering the negatives associated with Amsterdam are not worth the two hour and change runtime.
Final Rating: 4/10
