In much of the latest David O. Russell Experience, “Amsterdam,” the film zig-zags and hurries to and fro, but occasionally spins in place. Yes, a 1930s screwball pastiche, a charming and seductive heist performer chasing mysteries, playing detectives, tripping feet, and navigating an international conspiracy best enjoyed if you don’t pay. It’s full. That seems to be the approach Russell himself took.
Like all of Russell’s films, this one is loose gooey and tense. At its heart are three American comrades-in-arms who met in Europe during World War I, formed a close friendship, and, as we can see in long flashbacks, lived for some time in Amsterdam. played bohemian to rhapsody until reality called them back home. A decade later, with much personal drama, it was 1933 and the three had settled into their own lives. And Taylor Swift pops up in a fetch hat and red alarm lipstick to send everyone to a scramble.
Bart (Christian Bale), a dropout doctor with shady habits who announces in France that he’s lost an eye, fits nicely into the piece. There he meets nurse Valerie (Margot Robbie) and his best friend Harold (John David Washington). Soon, the guys get caught up in a conspiracy via Swift’s Liz, one of her girlfriends, a mysterious woman who always causes trouble. Her father died under questionable circumstances and she turned to Harold for help. So Bart will soon do an autopsy with Zoe Saldana’s Irma, another Florence Nightingale.
Bale also appeared in Russell’s 2013 neo-screwball “American Hustle”. This comedy is mostly a dizzyingly funny comedy about a quartet of con men, set in his 1970s. In that movie, Bale’s good looks were topped off with a shaggy beard, huge intestines, and an awful comb. For his role here, the actor slimmed down and hid effectively. Bart has a small scar under one eye and sometimes a nest of raised hair like Barton Fink. -Bobbing and Jaw Drops.