Entertaining conspiracy in the land of the one-eyed King.
Three cinema trips ago, and in the second week of October of a year that is ending just hours away from when I pen these brief words of appreciation, I was leaving my local cinema in the company of my beautiful son when I happened upon the above poster for Amsterdam and immediately remarked to all within earshot: this will be a stunner of a film. As is so often proved correct within my own particular one-eyed kingdom, I was indeed right, and director David O Russell’s tenth big screen cinematic affair was a conspiratorial treat. Not as accomplished perhaps as his 1999 epic Three Kings or Silver Linings Playbook over a decade later or my particular favourite in his cinematic cannon, 2013’s American Hustle, but I loved Amsterdam for a multitude of reasons and hopefully for differing and surprising reasons than your own.
Returning for just a moment to that film poster and my proclamation of its coming greatness as a film as my son and I ambled away from Halloween Ends in early October, whilst he was nonplussed by my soothsaying future review the cinema’s “Greeter” wasn’t as she confessed (a) she’d seen and loved an advance copy of the film and (b) she’d already bagged the poster I was referring to as she too liked it and as a perk of the job, she can buy any unreserved film posters for a knockdown price. I was of course envious as I’m a childish film fan at heart and am so often taken in by a good poster and so it was, finally, on 29th December in a year finishing in a mere few hours from now, that I watched Amsterdam expectantly awaiting a gem of a film that didn’t arrive but which was replaced by something wholly surprisingly and unexpectedly different.
Since seeing the film poster in early October I’d seen not a trailer nor a sneak peak or any written reviews whatsoever. I still haven’t. I watched this film without even the most basic of a premise or blurb which, according to The Matrix Movie Bible at www.imdb.com proclaims Amsterdam to be:
“In the 1930s, three friends witness a murder, are framed for it, and uncover one of the most outrageous plots in American history”.
Had I known this before time I would of course have been expecting the obvious real-life conspiracy being laid out before us and with the introduction of Robert De Niro in his notable cameo role, however it was even more pleasing for your humble narrator to call out this conspiracy ahead of cinematic time, way before the introduction of De Niro and way before those closing credits that rather soured the ending to an otherwise brilliantly engaging film.
Go see the credits for yourself. It’s all there for a one eye wishing to see.
But rather remarkably, arguably the greatest untold and unsaid conspiracy of all time is laid out within this gem of a film and should you be unaware of General Smedley Butler, his book “War is a Racket”, the request placed upon him to lead a Fascist revolution in the United States of America exactly a century ago or his multitude of revealing quotes attributed to him later in life, treat yourself to a real conspiracy in a world absent of them according to our Overlords in charge of the all seeing eye.
Five paragraphs in and not one word about the film? Par for my cinematic course. There are never any major spoilers here. Just a human reaction to an artform I revere like no other. But returning to the film poster once again and it’s a veritable who’s who and ensemble collection of character actors and actresses of our generation, all of whom produce intriguing, spirited and fiercely individual performances. In poster order we have Margot Robbie playing arguably a dual character if not definitely a dual personality as she flits from secretive war nurse to artist and much more in league with the love of her life, World War I veteran and now New York lawyer in the guise of John David Washington. Chris Rock is an awkwardly outspoken World War I veteran too and best friends with Washington whilst back in a New York of 1933 and fifteen years since the end of the Great War, we find Anya Taylor-Joy as a rather prissy and controlling wife of Rami Malek whilst Zoe Saldana excels as a medical examiner.
Pleasingly as well as perhaps unfairly, I saw the Mike Myers character of a British spy stepping right out of the Quentin Tarantino character created for him in 2009’s Inglourious Basterds and the screen time he shares with Michael Shannon’s American spy is a bizarre joy. Timothy Olyphant is a hitman. Andrea Riseborough a socially climbing and grasping estranged wife. Taylor Swift hangs up the singing microphone for a small cameo role and Matthias Schoenaerts and Alessandro Nivola complete the poster roll of acting talent as two ridiculously cartoonish bungling New York detectives.
Which just leaves your star of a conspiratorial show:
“Bert Berendsen” (Christian Bale) World War I veteran and now ostensibly a fringe outsider doctor and medical practitioner, Berendsen has seen the devastation of war and the human casualties he now tries in vain to treat. The carnage of human war is writ large on the returning veterans unable to stop shaking from what was termed then as “Shell Shock” but is now flowered and mired in the newspeak language of “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”, but Berendsen is also somewhat of an expert in the art of facial and body disfigurement having lost and left an eye in France at the very end of the war. Forming a “pact” with the nurse who saved him and nursed him back to health (Margot Robbie as “Valerie Voze”) and his best friend and also recovering veteran (John David Washington as “Harold Woodman”), Berendsen breaks the pact to return to his medical calling in New York and the estranged wife from an estranged family who distrust him enormously.
As ever, Christian Bale is wonderful in a central role arguably only he or Sam Rockwell could truly play and pull off with such aplomb. Often framed with a querying and quizzical head tilt to the side and always with long, lingering shots on a character trying desperately to piece together the puzzle before him, David O Russell deserves enormous credit for writing such a character as well as guiding and directing him into life in league with Bale.
“A lot of this really happened”, so proclaims the very first frame of the film before we journey backward and forward, from 1930’s New York to France in 1918 and back again, as a tapestry is slowly woven around a huge cast of characters embroiled or otherwise in the greatest untold (and dare not spoken about) conspiracy of all time. There’s an arguable hero’s tale component to the story alongside the conspiracy but with heavy emphasis on the returning veterans I’m hoping the deliberately shocking human aftermath of war resonates deeply with everyone.
There’s a “Committee of 5” and “The Great Nation Society” and with a bending of the truth and some plot contrivances combining with a stellar cast, I rather enjoyed Amsterdam and recommend it to you.
Postscript
I first read about this Fascist coup to topple a sitting USA President to install a military dictatorship in the late 1990’s so it’s only taken a quarter of a century since then to arrive on the big cinema screen. I still haven’t seen or read any reviews of the film but I’d wager it gets panned. Big time!
I’d also wager than no-one of any mainstream substance brings up the conspiracy despite it’s centennial anniversary and the implications this may have had for the world at large.
But then again, conspiracies don’t exist, do they?
Silly me.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 100 blog articles (with 300+ individual film reviews) within my archives from which to choose:
“28 Days Later” (2002)
“OK Jim, I’ve got some bad news”.medium.com
“Enemy” (2013)
“Chaos is order yet undecided”.medium.com
“Barton Fink” (1991)
My Coen Brothers Top Ten — Vol 3.medium.com