Amsterdam is a new crime drama directed, written and partly produced by David O. Russel, director of American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook.

The film is set in New York around the year 1933. The film is about the two soldiers Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) and Harold Woodman (John David Washington), who witness a murder together with nurse Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie). . When charged with this murder, they must prove their innocence, but learn about a major conspiracy in American history.

This film is David O. Russel's first directing work after eight years since directing the 2015 film Joy. As with the 2013 film American Hustle, David O. Russel has once again cast many actors with whom he has previously collaborated and these actors are now big household names in the film world. While these household names help a lot with promoting the film itself, David O. Russell seems to have made the film too big and filled it with too many different characters.

The story suffers a lot from this, which makes it difficult to follow as a viewer and at a moment it only starts to feel long-winded. The many characters, each with their own storyline, only make the film unnecessarily busy. For a better and clearer story, David O. Russell could have used fewer characters and well-known actors in his film. Despite the messy sides of the story, the ending still surprisingly enough on the predictable side.

David O. Russel also seems to have gotten a bit lost in his own story, because he often changes genres himself. One moment the film comes across as a crime drama, while later it suddenly looks more like a crime comedy. These drama and comedy sides also hardly match in the final film.

Due to the amount of actors in this film, most are overshadowed by the rest, or get little story to do with their characters. Christian Bale manages to appear best in the film compared to the rest. Other big names like Anya Taylor-Joy, Rami Malek and Robert De Niro get some small moments in the film, but not enough to really make it special. Singer Taylor Swift also has a small role in the film, but because she is not really an actress, this is reflected in her acting performance. She comes across as very different compared to the real actors in the film. Why David O Russell gave her a small role in his film remains the question.