Amsterdam (2022)
Directed by David O. Russell
In the 1930s, three friends—a doctor, a nurse, and an attorney—witness a murder, become suspects themselves and uncover one of the most outrageous plots in American history.
2 connections found
View:
2 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Amsterdam to
The comedy parts, which are supposed to be Russell’s forte since his 1994 feature-length debut in Spanking the Monkey, turn out to be shockingly unfunny for the bulk of the movie’s running time.
Written, co-produced and directed by David O. Russell ( Joy ; American Hustle ; Silver Linings Playbook ; The Fighter ; I Heart Huckabees ; Three Kings ; Flirting with Disaster ; Spanking the Monkey ).
His debut, “Spanking the Monkey” (1994) roiled literally in the Oedipal; “Three Kings” (1999), semi-famous for George Clooney and the director rankling each other, was one of my favorites of the 1990s; the locally shot story of Micky Ward in “The Fighter” (2010) was a gritty something-else for Russell; and then there was the almost-never-released “Accidental Love” (2015), an Affordable Care Act satire starring Jessica Biel as a waitress who gets a nail stuck in her head (the original title was “Nailed”) and experiences nymphomaniacal impulses.
I was reminded of colossal misfires like Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and David O. Russell’s Amsterdam, bloated movies by directors so drunk on their exalted reputations they forgot there was an audience to consider.