Amsterdam
Amsterdam is a film about friendship, decency, and the courage it takes to defend democracy against people with money and no conscience. It is also, unfortunately, a mess.
Full analysis below
Want to know what's safe to watch? Get our weekly guide to new reviews and woke-free picks. No spam, ever.
This film draws you in for a significant portion of its runtime with traditional or neutral content before springing its woke agenda. Know before you go!
Margin is negative but content is not hidden. Amsterdam's anti-fascist political premise is front and center from the opening frames. The film is based on the real 1933 Business Plot and its opposition to American fascism is the stated subject. Conservative viewers will know exactly what they are watching within the first act. No trap.
Our Verdict on Amsterdam
Amsterdam is a film about friendship, decency, and the courage it takes to defend democracy against people with money and no conscience. It is also, unfortunately, a mess.
David O. Russell assembled one of the most impressive casts of 2022. Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Robert De Niro, Rami Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, Taylor Swift, Chris Rock, Michael Shannon, Timothy Olyphant, Zoe Saldana, Mike Myers. He gave them a story based on a real 1933 conspiracy in which American industrialists allegedly tried to recruit a retired general to lead a fascist coup against FDR. The premise is genuinely fascinating. The execution is not.
The film opens in Amsterdam itself, with three young people (Burt, Harold, and Valerie) recovering from WWI wounds and living freely and happily in an interwar European city. Their friendship is warm and specific, and the Amsterdam sections are the film at its best. Then we cut to 1933 New York, a murder mystery, a conspiracy, and approximately fifteen subplots introduced over two hours that never quite snap together.
Russell's signature style, the overlapping dialogue, the manic energy, the refusal to let a scene breathe, works brilliantly in claustrophobic settings (The Fighter's family scenes, Silver Linings Playbook's dinner table fights). It does not work in an ensemble mystery-thriller where you need the audience to track plot logic. By the midpoint, I lost confidence that the film was going to pull its threads together. It does not, quite.
There is real content here for conservative viewers to engage with, though not in the way Russell likely intended. The film's patriotism is genuine. General Dillenbeck's speech about the nature of decency and the duty to report evil rather than accommodate it is one of the better pieces of writing in any 2022 film. The friendship between Burt and Harold, a white doctor and a Black lawyer in 1930s New York, is built on loyalty and mutual respect rather than progressive performance. These men are friends because they saved each other's lives in a French trench. That kind of bond transcends the cultural politics of any given moment.
But Amsterdam is also explicitly anti-fascist in a way that carries contemporary resonance. Russell is clearly making a film about more than 1933. The industrialists who want to install a puppet dictator are not subtle allegories. The film wants you to draw the line to the present. That is a choice, and it is a left-leaning one.
The bottom line: Amsterdam is a box-office bomb for reasons that have nothing to do with its politics. It is structurally undisciplined, tonally inconsistent, and overloaded with characters. The friendships at its core are worth saving from the wreckage. The political messaging is clear and center-left. The score lands exactly where the math puts it: MIXED.
Woke Tropes & Content Analysis
Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier
🔴 Woke Tropes
| Trope | Severity | Authenticity | Centrality | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anti-Fascist / Anti-Nationalist Political Messaging | 4 | 0.7 | 1.8 | 5.04 |
| Interracial Friendship as Moral Center / 1930s Race Politics | 2 | 0.7 | 1 | 1.4 |
| Anti-Corporate / Anti-Industrial Power Structure | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Eugenics / Forced Sterilization Depicted as Elite Villainy | 3 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 1.05 |
| TOTAL WOKE | 10.5 | |||
🟢 Traditional Tropes
| Trope | Severity | Authenticity | Centrality | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patriotism / Defending American Democracy | 4 | 0.7 | 1.8 | 5.04 |
| Veterans / Military Brotherhood | 3 | 0.7 | 1 | 2.1 |
| Male Loyalty and Moral Courage | 3 | 0.7 | 1 | 2.1 |
| TOTAL TRADITIONAL | 9.2 | |||
Score Margin: -1 WOKE
Director: David O. Russell
LEFT-LEANING. Russell is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter) with a long track record of humanist, character-driven films. Amsterdam is his most explicitly political film and his most troubled production. His personal history is complicated by harassment allegations from multiple collaborators, a fact the film's critics noted with some irony given its anti-fascist, pro-decency themes.David O. Russell is one of the most decorated American directors of the 21st century, with six Academy Award nominations across his career. Amsterdam represents a significant departure from his signature style: where The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook were intimate character studies, Amsterdam is an ambitious political satire with a cast of nearly twenty notable performers and a plot drawn from real historical events. The result is, by critical consensus, a failure of execution rather than ambition. Russell's instinct to stuff every frame with incident and every scene with overlapping dialogue overwhelms the story. The film grossed $31M against an $80M budget, making it one of the largest box-office bombs of 2022. Russell has not directed another film since.
Writer: David O. Russell
Russell wrote the original screenplay. The story is loosely based on the real Business Plot of 1933, in which a group of wealthy American industrialists allegedly approached retired Marine General Smedley Butler and asked him to lead a coup against FDR and install a fascist government. Butler reported the plot to Congress. The film takes this kernel and builds an ensemble mystery-comedy around it. The screenplay's ambitions exceed its execution: there are too many characters, too many tonal registers, and too many subplots for any one of them to land with full force.
Content Breakdown
Adult Viewer Insight
Conservative adults should approach Amsterdam with calibrated expectations. The film is flawed but not contemptible. Its celebration of the three-way friendship between Burt, Harold, and Valerie is built on loyalty, sacrifice, and shared suffering, values that transcend the film's political framing. Robert De Niro's scene as General Dillenbeck describing why decent people must not look away from evil is worth the price of admission. The anti-fascist messaging is real and intentional. But unlike films that smuggle ideology into entertainment, Amsterdam announces its politics openly, which at least respects the audience.
Parental Guidance
Rated R. Suitable for adults and older teens. Historical thriller content, brief violence, 1930s racial discrimination depicted. The political messaging is anti-fascist and moderately left-leaning.
Is Amsterdam Safe for Kids?
[object Object]
Find Amsterdam on Amazon Prime Video, rent, or buy:
▶ Stream or Buy on AmazonAs an Amazon Associate, VirtueVigil earns from qualifying purchases.
Community Discussion 0
Subscribe to comment.
Join the VirtueVigil community to share your perspective on this review.