David O. Russell

AMSTERDAM: a star-studded thriller without the thrills

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Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington in AMSTERDAM. Courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Amsterdam, which wants to be a star-studded paranoid thriller, is only star-studded.

Burt (Christian Bale) and Harold (John David Washington) met as American soldiers in WWI, and stay in Europe after the war, sharing an Amsterdam apartment and a bohemian lifestyle with another spirited American expat, Valerie (Margot Robbie). As Amsterdam the movie opens, Burt, now a shady physician, and Harold, now a lawyer, have returned to New York City, and the two share a commitment to helping other WWI veterans. The two are called to investigate a suspicious death, which they determine to have been a murder, and then there’s another murder, for which they are framed. Off they go to find the real murderers and clear themselves, becoming entangled in a convoluted conspiracy and re-encountering Valerie in the process.

Despite Bale, Washington and Robbie delivering solid performances, the story never pops. That’s the fault of a remarkably disappointing screenplay by director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle). We’re never surprised, never waiting for the next page to be turned, and not particularly invested in the characters.

The movie’s stars aside, Russell also wastes the talents of a ridiculously deep cast: Robert De Niro, Rami Malek, Andrea Riseborough, Ana-Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Michael Shannon, Zoe Saldana, Mike Myers, Timothy Olyphant, Taylor Swift, Matthias Schoenaert, Alessandro Nivola. There’s not a bad performance in the lot, but they just don’t get much to do. Michael Shannon and Mike Myer bring some laughs, but Schoenaert and Nivola have roles that could have been played by cardboard cutouts. Two weeks later, I can’t even remember Olyphant’s character. After winning an Oscar for wearing horse teeth and NOT singing like Freddie Mercury, Rami Malek seems to have settled into a career playing reptilian villains.

Here’s an example of bad storytelling . [SPOILER ALERT] The movie’s climax is an attempted assassination in an auditorium, like in The Manchurian Candidate. Burt is staggered by a bullet in the torso. Then there’s a fracas in which the shooter is apprehended. There’s a melee with uniformed Nazi sympathizers. Malek and Taylor-Joy’s characters are exposed, and the conspiracy is explained. Ten minutes later, as everyone leaves the auditorium, Burt removes his jacket and reveals that the bullet had only struck his back brace, and he doesn’t have a gunshot wound after all. By this time, I had FORGOTTEN THAT HE HAD BEEN SHOT.

An allusion to a real historical conspiracy is only a half-hearted political statement because this movie’s plot is just like that of every fictional paranoid conspiracy.

I recommend skipping Amsterdam and watching American Hustle again.

JOY: disappointingly empty

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Jenifer Lawrence in JOY
Jenifer Lawrence in JOY

The disappointingly empty dramedy Joy traces the story of housewife Joy Mangano (Jennifer Lawrence), who invented the Miracle Mop sold on QVC and became a business success despite the gravity pull of her dysfunctional family.

Why doesn’t this movie work?  One pivotal scene illustrates the problem. At this point, her business has imploded, she’s entangled in a hopeless legal morass, and everyone is urging her to file for bankruptcy.  She’s facing family disgrace, and she tells her daughter that she’s giving up.  But WE KNOW there’s no chance that Joy is really going to give up.  We know that Jennifer Lawrence is going to kick ass to a triumphant conclusion.  So there’s no tension, and therefore no drama.

Lawrence is very good, and I can generally watch her read a telephone book.  The rest of the cast, which includes Bradley Cooper in a brief role, is just fine.  But Joy’s slalom course through all her emotionally unhealthy relatives just isn’t very compelling.

Director David O. Russell has previously made two brilliantly entertaining movies with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro – Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. This ain’t them.

DVD/Stream of the Week: American Hustle

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american hustleWhy is American Hustle so gloriously entertaining? It’s certainly successful as a con man movie, as a 70s period piece and as a fast-paced (sometimes almost screwball) comedy. But I think the key is that writer-director David O. Russell develops such compelling characters – lots of them – and they’re so endearingly wacky, we just need to see what happens next. That’s the recipe he used in last year’s triumph Silver Linings Playbook (and in his under-appreciated 1996 Flirting with Disaster).

American Hustle opens with the wonderfully sly disclaimer “Some of this actually happened”, and then we see Christian Bale assembling the worst comb-over in cinematic history – and we’re hooked. The story follows the arc of the real-life Abscam scandal with the FBI forcing con artists to sting elected officials in an outlandish bribery-by-phony-sheik scheme. Bale plays an unattractive yet magnetic con man. Amy Adams is his tough and sexy partner. Bradley Cooper is their hyper-ambitious FBI handler.

As we would expect, Bale, Adams and Cooper are all fun to watch with this material. But Russell ‘s cast is very deep – the secondary and tertiary characters are just as fun. Jennifer Lawrence is a force of nature as Bale’s estranged wife, who takes passive aggressiveness to an entirely unforeseen level. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) almost steals the picture as an extremely sympathetic and good-hearted local pol who doesn’t see what’s coming. And Louis C.K. is hilarious as Cooper’s put-upon boss; as he did so successfully in Blue Jasmine, C.K. plays the character completely straight and lets the material generate the laughs; many comedians make the mistake of trying to act funny in movie comedies, but C.K. has a real gift for the lethal dead pan.

American Hustle plants us firmly in the late 1970s with an especially evocative score and very fun costumes and hair. Besides Bale’s comb-over, we enjoy the tightly permed curls of Adams and Cooper, along with Lawrence’s Jersey updo. And Adams and Lawrence sport an unceasing series of dresses with severely plunging necklines.

Funny and gripping at the same time, with scads of movie stars at their very best, American Hustle is a surefire good time at the movies.   American Hustle is now available on DVD frpm Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

American Hustle: gloriously entertaining

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american hustleWhy is American Hustle so gloriously entertaining?  It’s certainly successful as a con man movie, as a 70s period piece and as a fast-paced (sometimes almost screwball) comedy.  But I think the key is that writer-director David O. Russell develops such compelling characters – lots of them – and they’re so endearingly wacky, we just need to see what happens next.  That’s the recipe he used in last year’s triumph Silver Linings Playbook (and in his under-appreciated 1996 Flirting with Disaster).

American Hustle opens with the wonderfully sly disclaimer “Some of this actually happened”, and then we see Christian Bale assembling the worst comb-over in cinematic history – and we’re hooked.  The story follows the arc of the real-life Abscam scandal with the FBI forcing con artists to sting elected officials in an outlandish bribery-by-phony-sheik scheme.  Bale plays an unattractive yet magnetic con man.  Amy Adams is his tough and sexy partner.  Bradley Cooper is their hyper-ambitious FBI handler.

As we would expect, Bale, Adams and Cooper are all fun to watch with this material.  But Russell ‘s cast is very deep – the secondary and tertiary characters are just as fun.  Jennifer Lawrence is a force of nature as Bale’s estranged wife, who takes passive aggressiveness to an entirely unforeseen level.  Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) almost steals the picture as an extremely sympathetic and good-hearted local pol who doesn’t see what’s coming.  And Louis C.K. is hilarious as Cooper’s put-upon boss;  as he did so successfully in Blue Jasmine, C.K. plays the character completely straight and lets the material generate the laughs; many comedians make the mistake of trying to act funny in movie comedies, but C.K. has a real gift for the lethal dead pan.

American Hustle plants us firmly in the late 1970s with an especially evocative score and very fun costumes and hair.   Besides Bale’s comb-over, we enjoy the tightly permed curls of Adams and Cooper, along with Lawrence’s Jersey updo.  And Adams and Lawrence sport an unceasing series of dresses with severely plunging necklines.

Funny and gripping at the same time, with scads of movie stars at their very best, American Hustle is a surefire good time at the movies.

Silver Linings Playbook: strong story, humor and Jennifer Lawrence

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In the rewarding family dramedy Silver Linings Playbook, Bradley Cooper plays Pat, a guy who is trying to conquer his mental illness without medication, and it’s not working out well for him.  Although his mom springs him from a locked psychiatric facility, he is prone to violent meltdowns.  Worse, he still has the delusion that he can get back with his estranged wife; but it’s clear that his marriage and his teaching career have been irretrievably wrecked by his past behaviors (and there is the matter of restraining orders).  He meets a young widow (Jennifer Lawrence) who also has enough issues to know her way around the menu of psych meds, and his life changes in ways that he can’t anticipate.

The fine filmmaker David O. Russell (The Fighter, Three Kings, Flirting with Disaster, I Heart Huckabees) invests the first half of the film is establishing the seriousness of Pat’s disorder and the impact on his family.   Russell applies enough humor to keep this part bearable, but it can discomfort folks expecting a regular rom com.  But this is the key to the film’s success, because he makes the illness realistic and the opposite of cute.  If the plot followed the usual rom com arc and pacing, the film would be phony and insulting.

It’s difficult to describe the brilliance of Jennifer Lawrence’s performance.  Her Tiffany is at once volatile, damaged and enticing.  Lawrence demands the focus of the audience in every scene.  She was justifiably nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for Winter’s Bone, my pick for 2010’s top movie.  This performance is as least as good.

We also see Robert DeNiro playing Cooper’s father as a guy who is just as crazy as his son, but neither diagnosed or medicated.  In another outstanding performance, Jacki Weaver (Oscar nod for Animal Kingdom), plays the strong and long-suffering mom who must steer her hair-trigger son and tinderbox husband away from self-inflicted disasters.  John Ortiz is wonderfully appealing as Pat’s henpecked buddy.

It’s worth seeing Silver Linings Playbook for Jennifer Lawrence’s performance alone, but I recommend the film overall for its strong story, topicality and humor.

The Fighter

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The Fighter is an excellent drama, starring Mark Wahlberg as a boxer trying to succeed despite his crack addict brother (Christian Bale) and his powerful, trashy mom (Melissa Leo).   As one would expect, Bale nails the flashier role of the addict, deluding himself about both past glories and his importance to his family.  Leo is almost unrecognized under her teased hair, and is accompanied by a hilarious Greek Chorus of adult daughters, each trashier than the last.

The boxing scenes are very well done, and Wahlberg matches Stallone and Swank in making us believe that he is, indeed, a boxer. See my list of 10 Best Boxing Movies.