Amsterdam 4K 2022

America, 1933. World War I veteran Bert (Bale) and his battle buddy Harold (Washington) receive news of the death of their former staff general, Bill Meekins. The general's daughter Liz suspects her father has been murdered and so the three set about kidnapping the corpse for an autopsy. There's more to come.

In addition to the main trio of actors whose names are above, this film contains a no-nonsense number of Hollywood facepieces: equipped with a funny mustache Rami Malek, a boorish Anya Taylor-Joy, a beady-eyed Chris Rock, a meek Zoe Saldana, an unexpected Taylor Swift, an amusing Mike Myers and a typical Robert De Niro. But only two are more or less scripted: Christian Bale and Margot Robbie - the former has a permanently drooping false eye and experiments with drugs, the latter smokes a pipe and creates bizarre sculptures from shrapnel shards. At one point, almost all of the above artists are even present in the same scene, but the impression is sad, as if a crowd of people were trying to tell you an unfunny joke.

This is the main problem with the film-it is both overstuffed and underfed. Offering ambitious ideas, packed to the brim with charismatic actors and featuring isolated moments of genius, "Amsterdam" never becomes anything more than the sum of its impressive parts. And the biggest complaint about actor Washington: why did he again ask the director to use a plastic mannequin instead? It's like he's devoid of emotion, static and fake. I'm sorry, Denzel, but nature has robbed your son of his talent.

Russell is one of my favorite directors, ("Three Kings" and "The Fighter," for me, are simply the golden fund of filmmaking), so it's a shame that I now have to experience two-plus hours of Spanish shame while watching his "Amsterdam."