Early and Positive Reaction For ‘Amsterdam’

David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam” has started screening all around the country, especially in NYC and Los Angeles.

I’ll leave it up to you to figure out why Russell’s film skipped the fall fests. It’s set to be released in two weeks and now it’ll have to build buzz organically through various different press and audience events.

Here’s one of presumably many reactions that will start trickling in the days to come. It’s a positive one, comparing “Amsterdam” to “American Hustle” set in the ‘30s:

AMSTERDAM was a lot like AMERICAN HUSTLE. Not only because both are period dramas featuring a group of unlikely friends, but all the set design, colours, cinemtography looked the same. However, what AMERICAN HUSTLE — which is a movie I quite like — is not is confusing. That’s probably AMSTERDAM’s biggest problem. The mystery is quite not bad at all and has a fulfilling and surprising resolution, but all the in-betweens can be a little tiring. There’s still one big thing involving Bale and Malek’s character which I still quite didn’t understand.

Anyhow, Oscar wise, I don’t think it’s gonna happen. Critics probably aren’t big fans of Russell, so I think good-to-great reviews could only happen if this was a slayage, which it is not, it’s fun, entertaining and a tiny bit messy. Acting-wise I was impressed by Christian Bale once again, he just inhabits this character with such ease and has a lot to do. Margot Robbie didn’t do anything exceptional and was mostly playing by the cards. John David Washington was fine and that’s it, I’m just not sure if the problem was that the character was too limited, if he was too limited, or both.

Anya Taylor-Joy was the only other person who made an impression on me after Bale, but that’s mostly because of the character she plays — ridiculous and funny. I loved her Taylor Swift has just a few scenes, but enough to make an impression. She is fine. Rami Malek and Robert DeNiro are also good.

There’s more noteworthy people in this outstanding ensemble, however, as I said, Bale and Joy were the only ones to impress me, the other ones were serviciable — but a good kind of serviciable! I do call this an outstanding ensemble solely because as a whole the ensemble worked very organically: sometimes, in films like these, there’s people who seem to be in a whole other movie, not much connection between the actors, fortunately that doesn’t happen here.

If somehow this movie surprises with the critics reviews in the coming week and gets in the Oscar conversation, this will be a fair bet at the SAG Awards. It could be like Bombshell: doesn’t get Picture, but the ensemble is hard to deny.

The cast is stacked. Where to begin? The film stars Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Zoe Saldaña, Rami Malek, Robert De Niro, Andrea Riseborough and Matthias Schoenaerts.

Critics are already sharpening their knives out for Russell and this movie. I say, wait it out until it’s actually released in October. Also, try to not have the inevitable controversies surrounding its director affect your perception of this film.