Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldaña, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, Timothy Olyphant, Andrea Riseborough, Taylor Swift, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alessandro Nivola, Rami Malek, and Robert De Niro
Movie Length: 2 hours 14 minutes
What it is: A mystery/comedy set in the 1920s based on a real life plot to overthrow the US President and replace him with a dictator. The movie follows 3 friends (Bale, Robbie, Washington) who are caught in the middle of events around the plot.
What Dan thought: I thought the movie was going to be more of murder mystery (ala Orient Express and Knives Out), and I’m glad I was wrong. The movie has a lot more going for it, and some of the twists I was not expecting. I was not familiar with the plot that the movie was based on but I plan to read up on it now.
The main cast were terrific, especially Washington who is proving more and more that he’s a star. Kudos go out to Bale’s dialect coach who had him do a terrific New York accent. The supporting cast were great, and Mike Myers was the best out of them, you could tell he was enjoying himself in his role as a spy (but not an Austin Powers type spy). Oh, and fans of Taylor Swift, don’t fear…her role is pretty significant/important.
All in all I enjoyed the movie and now knowing it was based on a real story (stay for the credits as they show some archive footage side by side with a movie scene for reference), makes it even better in my opinion.
Dan’s grade: B. The movie is a bit slow at times and some of the scenes could have been shortened/removed (I won’t go into details for spoiler reasons) but overall I enjoyed it.
Check out our own Darren Shulman (along with Tracey)’s thoughts on the movie here: https://anchor.fm/darren-shulman/episodes/Amsterdam-Review-e1orse8/a-a5tqa9p
Amsterdam is set to be released in theaters in the US on October 7th 2022.
