Amsterdam (2022)

David O. Russell's Amsterdam arrives with the self-assurance of a film that believes it has something important to say. It is a 1930s-set mystery comedy loosely based on the Business Plot, a real conspiracy to unseat President Roosevelt. The film takes generous liberties with that history, inventing a cabal called the Committee of the Five and linking it to Nazism. This revisionist approach recasts the era through a modern antifascist lens. The result plays as an antifascist history lesson, though the lesson is muddled. Critics noted the contemporary overtones, and the film does reach for something about race and concentrated wealth. It does not preach, but it does lecture.

The ensemble features John David Washington as Harold, a Black lawyer and veteran. His experience of racism and his service in the segregated 369th Infantry Regiment give the film a genuine racial-consciousness dimension. The diversity is historically grounded, not incidental. Valerie and Irma are capable, self-directed women, but the film offers no explicit feminist thesis. Valerie remains partly a romantic object, and the arc belongs to the male trio. There is no LGBTQ representation, no environmental theme, and no neurodivergent characters. Valerie's supposed nerve disease is a poisoning ruse, not a portrait of disability.

The villains are wealthy industrialists plotting a fascist coup, which gives the film a clear sentiment that the rich are the enemy. It is framed as antifascism more than economic critique, but the sentiment is there. Burt's war-disfigured face is treated matter-of-factly, and he is a romantic lead, a mild gesture toward body acceptance. The film's social consciousness is present but uneven. It is a curious artifact, applying 2020s sensibilities to 1930s history without fully committing to any of them. The whole endeavor feels like a beautiful, overstuffed cabinet of curiosities, and like the conspiracy it depicts, it never quite comes together.