Nowadays it seems that putting together a cast full of Hollywood stars is no guarantee of anything. Very recently we have the huge failure of ‘Babylon’ at the box office in the United States, but just a few months before it was ‘Amsterdam’ that reported multimillion-dollar losses. now the movie David O Russell has a new opportunity to conquer the public with its arrival in the Disney+ catalog in Spain.
Based on an incredible true story, ‘Amsterdam’ really focuses on the story of three friends with a most peculiar friendship and how they find themselves involved in a tremendous mess that keeps getting more and more complicated throughout its more than two hours of footage. About the role of prestige adult cinema, but what we really find here is much less exhilarating.
The main problem with ‘Amsterdam’ is that it gives the feeling that Russell he is never very clear about what he wants to achieve here. As soon as it turns more towards the comic than the dramatic, being unable to find a balance point that serves as a support for the film, but it is also not very inspired in isolation. Not even when he comes up with a promising idea or concept, because he soon puts it aside to continue accumulating details that in most cases lead nowhere.
I also do not forget that this eccentric tone present at all times rarely works in his favor, since Christian bale he seems to be the only member of his extensive and luxurious cast who knows how to squeeze it. The rest cannot be said to be bad, but they do end up a bit lost in the hodgepodge that Russell presents, to the point that in some cases it seems that they simply don’t know what the film wants from them.
Otherwise, the luxurious means are noted in the technical sections so that the viewer really feels that what happens on the screen is located during the 30s, but this is by no means enough to compensate for Russell’s own inaccurate script.
In Espinof: