Amsterdam review: Star-studded whodunnit isn’t as clever as it thinks it is-Larushka Ivan-Zadeh-Entertainment – Metro

There are all-star casts and then there’s Amsterdam, an ensemble packed with more famous faces than an Oscars night selfie.

Christian Bale heads up this kooky comedy as mad-haired one-eyed doctor Burt, called to perform an autopsy on his old war commander by a mysterious blonde (Taylor Swift, making a meme-tastic exit). Actually, you know what? There’s zero hope of summarising this tangled plot.

Its heart supposedly lies in the oddly sexless ménage à trois between Burt, his former comrade-in-arms Harold (John David Washington, finally flashing a smile) and Valerie, a pipe-smoking nurse (the ever dazzling Margot Robbie), and the freedom they enjoy in Amsterdam before spending the rest of the movie in 1930s New York.

Simultaneously frantic and inert, it plays out over 126 suspenseless minutes like a bad Coen brothers movie with a Jules Et Jim twist.

Once your head stops swivelling from the ‘oh my gosh, it’s Robert De Niro/Rami Malek/Anya Taylor-Joy/Chris Rock’ whiplash, you’re left with plenty of time to wonder just why you are watching this as well as why all these big these names – including Mike Myers, who steals the show – were jostling to get into such a dud.

Taylor Swift makes a meme-tasic exit (Picture: 20th Century Studios)

Presumably it was to work with director David O Russell, whose triple whammy of The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle has made him a fairy godfather when it comes to Oscar acting nominations.

Though some have queried why they would want to work with Russell, given his controversial behaviour (he allegedly came to blows with George Clooney on the set of Three Kings (he denied ‘physically attacking’ the star), made Amy Adams cry on American Hustle, not to mention famously berating Lily Tomlin).

All of which makes Amsterdam’s message of respecting kindness and creativity over the abuse of power ring rather hollow.

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Watching a cast of this calibre chew their way through this script is painful. As a satire on the rise of American corporate fascism, it isn’t as clever as it thinks it is.

That said, there are sparkling moments, most of them courtesy of Robbie. When is someone going to cast her in a Katharine Hepburn biopic? That’s the movie I’d rather see.

Out Friday in cinemas

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