NUREMBERG : Tuesday 9th December 2025

I saw the M Rated 'NUREMBERG' this week at my local multiplex, and this American psychological thriller historical drama film is Written for the screen, Co-Produced and Directed by James Vanderbilt in only his second Directorial outing following his 2015 'Truth', although he is perhaps best known as a prolific script writer and Producer of many Hollywood blockbusters and has worked with numerous top Directors. This film is based on the 2013 book 'The Nazi and the Psychiatrist' by Jack El-Hai. The film had its World Premiere in the Gala Presentations section of the Toronto International Film Festival in early September this year where it received a four-minute standing ovation, one of TIFF's longest standing ovations ever, and was released theatrically in the US in early November having received generally positive reviews from critics, and has so far taken US$20M at the Box Office.

The film opens on 7th May 1945, one day before Nazi Germany surrenders to the Allied forces, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering (Russell Crowe), Hitler's former second-in-command, surrenders with his family to US forces in Austria. At the same time, Associate Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon) is informed of Goering's arrest, which prompts a discussion with his secretary, Elsie Douglas (Wrenn Schmidt), about establishing an international tribunal to charge the surviving Nazi leadership with war crimes. Initially, the US is reluctant to support Jackson's plans preferring instead summary executions by hanging, however, Jackson persists by winning the support of Pope Pius XII (Giuseppe Cederna) by implying his knowledge of the latter's controversial relationship with the Nazi regime back in 1933.

Meanwhile, US Army psychiatrist Major Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) is summoned to Bad Mondorf, Luxembourg, to evaluate the mental health of twenty-two Nazi leaders who are being held under Allied custody, including Goering, who have been selected for prosecution. Reporting to the Warden, Col. Burton Andrus (John Slattery), Kelley begins his assignment with the assistance of interpreter Sergeant Howard Triest (Leo Woodall). While initial meetings with Goering are civil, other prisoners such as Robert Ley (Tom Keune) and Julius Streicher (Dieter Riesle) respond with contempt and anger. Personally, using a series of cognitive tests and through conversation Kelley appraises Goering as intelligent yet highly narcissistic, and plans to use his notes of those discussions and meetings to write a tell-all book for personal gain, once his assignment is complete.

In time, Jackson and British barrister Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (Richard E. Grant) are made prosecuting counsels for the newly-established International Military Tribunal to be held in Nuremberg, Germany - which in turn, charges the detainees with crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity and conspiracy. In the lead up to the trial, Kelley and Goering interact well. Goering even helps Kelley examine former-Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess (Andreas Pietschmann), in exchange for being allowed to write to his wife Emmy (Lotte Verbeek) and daughter Edda (Fleur Bremmer). Kelley also develops a rapport with them, acting as a courier for the exchange of letters between them and Goering. In private, Kelley is approached by Jackson to report the prisoners' legal defence to him in order to help steer the prosecution in the right direction. Kelley responds with the argument of Doctor and patient privilege, but is persuaded to comply with Jackson's wishes on the basis of the greater good.

Before the trial begins, Ley commits suicide by strangling himself in his cell. As a result Andrus summons psychologist Gustave Gilbert (Colin Hanks) to provide a second opinion. At the trial's beginning, Jackson delivers a strong opening statement highlighting the need for accountability, while Goering is silenced and instead ordered to enter a plea, to which he and the other prisoners plead not guilty. During adjournments, Kelley learns that Goering's family had been arrested in connection with his reported art thefts and requests Andrus to intervene. Goering later learns of this development from Gilbert, causing his and Kelley's relationship to sour. Outside the cell, in a specially designed enclosed walkway for the prisoners, Kelley and Gilbert get into a fist fight, and are hauled in front of Andrus, who asks Gilbert if he wishes to press charges against Kelley, to which he responds with a 'no'. 

When the trial recommences, the prosecution shows film footage displaying the regime's atrocities committed inside its numerous concentration camps, causing an upset Kelley to confront Goering, who had previously denied any knowledge of such actions. Goering continues his stance of unawareness, and resorts towards denying the atrocities or comparing them with alleged crimes committed by the Allies. Dismayed, Kelley proceeds to get drunk and unwittingly reveals his private discussions with Goering to Lila (Lydia Peckham), a journalist with The Boston Globe, who subsequently publishes the information as headline front page news. Infuriated, Andrus relieves Kelley and orders him out, but not before revealing that he was able to get Emmy and Edda released. 

While waiting at the train station to leave back to the US Kelley meets Triest who reveals that he is a German-born Jew, who grew up in Germany but was given a one way ticket to the US aboard a ship as a teenager to stay with a cousin in New York before settling in Detroit. After the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbour he waited to be called up, which eventually came in 1943, and he actively joined the war effort landing on the Normandy beaches two days after D-Day. While his younger sister was able to escape to Switzerland, his parents were sent to Auschwitz in 1942 and never survived.

Triest warns that the regime's cruelty went unchallenged because of a general impassivity towards evil, which compels Kelley to stay and submit all his private notes on Goering to Jackson and Fyfe - predicting that Goering plans to use the trial to defend the regime's conduct. True to his predictions, Goering is able to elude Jackson's cross-examination of him, and proceeds to declare that his decree of the Final Solution was actually intended as a 'complete and total solution' focused on the emigration of Germany's Jews rather than extermination. In turn, Jackson's ire towards Goering earns him a stern disapproval by the tribunal, prompting Fyfe to take over. Fyfe exploits Goering's vanity and goads him into overtly admitting his continued loyalty to Hitler despite the atrocities, which finally corners him. At the end of the trial, Goering, together with the remaining prisoners, are all sentenced to death by hanging.

Kelley pays Goering a final visit before leaving, where he comes to terms with Goering's true nature. On 15th October 1946, the night before his scheduled execution, Goering commits suicide by ingesting a cyanide capsule, much to Andrus' anger. The remaining executions proceed as scheduled with two journalists for the US (one of which is Lila), two from the UK, two from France and two from Russia being allowed to sit in and witness the proceedings. Streicher meanwhile, suffers a nervous breakdown in his cell, before Triest comes to his aid, and who had yearned to reveal his Jewish heritage to Streicher before his execution, but is instead compelled to gently assist him to the gallows.

Kelley, traumatised by his experiences at Nuremberg, returns to the US and publishes his tell-all book, '22 Cells in Nuremberg', and in a live radio broadcast loses his cool warning about the possibility of a future regime parallel to the Nazis in the US or any other country around the world. When he is marched out of the studio one of the presenters says to Kelley that disrespecting your country is no way to sell your book. The film's closing credits reveal that Kelley resorted to alcoholism, that his book was a failure and that he committed suicide in 1958 by ingesting cyanide just as Goering did. Triest managed to reunite with his sister and died at the age of 93 in 2016. Jackson's prosecutorial efforts at Nuremberg laid the foundation for international prosecution of war crimes.

'Nuremberg' is a well executed historical drama offering that is underpinned by an on point ensemble cast, with particular standout performances by Russell Crowe especially, and Michael Shannon and Richard E. Grant. As for Rami Malek's performance I can't help feeling he may have been miscast with his permanently pursed lips, almost vacant facial expression, his wild staring eyes and his magic tricks - where did that come from? Director James Vanderbilt has delivered us a gripping true story account of a trial that changed the course of history that is made all the more effective by including actual archival footage of the horrors uncovered when the Concentration Camps were liberated, which is central to the story here. The film serves as a timely reminder, 80 years on, of the horrors of war, and whether as a global community we have really learned anything from it, given the current geopolitical situation we currently finds ourselves in. 'Nuremberg' is certainly well worth the price of your movie ticket as a history lesson, for Russell Crowe's compelling performance, and as a conversation starter as I did with my 24 year old son. 

'Nuremberg' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE AMATEUR : Tuesday 15th April 2025

I saw the M Rated 'THE AMATEUR' earlier this week at my local independent movie theatre, and this American vigilante action spy thriller film is Directed by James Hawes and is based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Robert Littell, which was previously adapted into a Canadian film that same year with John Savage, Christopher Plummer and Marthe Keller. James Hawes previous feature film making effort was 'One Life' in 2023, although he has Directed numerous TV series since the early 2000's, including multiple episodes of 'Doctor Who', 'Merlin', 'Penny Dreadful', 'Black Mirror', 'Snowpiercer' and 'Slow Horses'. The film was released in the US last week too, has so far grossed US$35M from a production budget of US$60M and has garnered mixed or average reviews. 

Here then, Charles 'Charlie' Heller (Rami Malek, who also Co-Produces here), is a brilliant yet deeply introverted CIA cryptographer, who as the film opens up is seen carefully unwrapping parts to restore an old Cessna single prop plane that was gifted to him by his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan). Later that same day Sarah departs for London where she is attending a four day conference. She asks him to join her, but as usual he declines saying that he has too much important work to do at Langley. At the CIA's Decryption and Analysis division, Charlie has befriended a field agent nicknamed 'the Bear' (Jon Bernthal), and an anonymous source codenamed 'Inquiline'. 

Inquiline sends Charlie highly classified and heavily encrypted files that reveal Special Activities Centre Director and Charlie's boss Alex Moore (Holt McCallany) altered politically-motivated drone strikes as suicide bombings. Later that evening Charlie tries calling Sarah but he only goes through to her voicemail. The next morning Charlie subsequently is brought to CIA Director Samantha O'Brien (Julianne Nicholson), who informs him that Sarah has been killed in a terrorist attack in London. Charlie is disbelieving until he sees raw footage displayed on a TV screen in her office downloaded from a security camera in close proximity to the hotel where Sarah was shot execution style.

A grieving Charlie soon afterwards presents his own findings to Moore and his CIA Deputy Caleb Horowitz (Danny Sapani). After an arms deal gone wrong, four assailants took Sarah and others hostage, killing her before escaping. Charlie identifies the suspects, Belarusian criminal Mishka Blazhic (Marc Rissmann), South African ex-special forces operative Ellish (Joseph Millson), former Armenian intelligence officer Gretchen Frank (Barbara Probst), and elusive mastermind Horst Schiller (Michael Stuhlbarg), Sarah's killer. However, Moore and Horowitz insist they are working to take down Schiller's entire network, and as such tell Charlie to keep out. Determined to avenge Sarah, Charlie confronts Moore and Horowitz with his incriminating orders, which caused hundreds of civilian and allied casualties. Initially Moore brushes off the evidence laid before him, but Charlie then threatens to leak the information to the CIA Director and then the news channels. Charlie demands the available CIA resources to personally hunt down the four terrorists.

And so Charlie is sent off to train with Col. Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) at Camp Peary. The gun-shy Charlie excels at bomb-making, but Henderson lays it out clearly on the line that he is simply not capable of killing anyone. Meanwhile, Moore and Horowitz mobilise a team of CIA operatives to search Charlie's home, office and anywhere he may have visited recently. They discover a CD he hid in a bar's jukebox, but realise he was bluffing when the CD is examined. Henderson is ordered to eliminate Charlie, who bugged the files he left in Moore's office, but he had already vacated his room and was on his way out of the country on a flight bound for London and then a train to Paris, using the fake ID documents he had been given by the CIA.

Charlie tracks down Gretchen Frank in Paris, following an on-line lock-picking tutorial to break into her apartment. He discovers Gretchen's appointment at an asthma and allergy clinic and takes a gun, but cannot bring himself to shoot her when she returns to her home. The next day he buys up all the lilies at a street florist shop, and he traps Gretchen at the clinic in a hypobaric chamber that he fills with the pollen extracted from the lilies. Charlie demands to know Schiller's location, but is unwilling to let Gretchen die and releases her. The pair fight, but she escapes to the street, followed in hot pursuit by Charlie, and is fatally struck by a passing van. Taking Gretchen's phone, Charlie catches a bus to Marseille where Henderson corners him in a bar, but he sets off an explosion in the mens rest room and escapes. 

He requests Inquiline's help and is smuggled to Istanbul, where Inquiline (Caitriona Balfe) reveals herself as the Russian widow of a murdered ex-KGB officer, having taken his place as Charlie's source some six years prior. They trace Blazhic to a luxury hotel in Madrid, while O'Brien learns Moore has sent Henderson after Charlie, and sends her own operative.

In Madrid, Charlie confronts Blazhic as he swims alone in the hotel's rooftop infinity pool perched sixteen storey's up between two towers. He has rigged scuba equipment to decompress the air between the pool's sheets of glass. When Blazhic refuses to answer any questions, Charlie at the press of a button shatters the glass and sends him plummeting to his death. He is nearly apprehended once again by Henderson, who is attacked by O'Brien's operative. In the ensuing struggle, Henderson is shot but kills the operative, allowing Charlie to escape once more. Horowitz realises that Charlie is communicating with someone by spotting an earpiece he is wearing in CCTV footage from the hotel. He tracks down Inquiline and sends a strike team from the CIA Field Office in Istanbul, and Inquiline is killed in a hail of rapid gun fire as she flees with Charlie in a car.

Charlie tracks down Ellish in Romania under the pretence of selling him missiles and traps him with an improvised explosive device that has a remotely activated motion sensor, forcing him to reveal that Schiller operates from a ship on the Baltic Sea. He takes Ellish's phone and leaves him to die in the explosion. Charlie arrives in Primorsk to spy on Schiller's operation. Bear confronts him in a dock side cafe, but Charlie refuses to end his personal vendetta, and so he leaves Charlie pondering his fate.

Charlie is captured and is taken aboard Schiller's ship, coming face-to-face with Sarah's killer. Schiller offers him a loaded gun and the chance to take his revenge. Standing over Schiller with the pistol pointed squarely at Schiller's head and within point blank range, he drops the gun and takes a seat. Charlie reveals that he just had to keep talking long enough as he hacked the ships control systems, steering it to the Gulf of Finland where Schiller and his crew are taken into custody by Finnish Police and Interpol. O'Brien goes public with her revelations about Moore and Horowitz who are later arrested for their unsanctioned operations. After being visited by a recovered Henderson, Charlie is seen taking his restored Cessna plane for its first flight.

With 'The Amateur' Director James Hawes has here delivered a fairly predictable by the numbers spy action thriller that is straight out of the Bourne, or Bond or M:I playbook, with locations spread far and wide, well choreographed action set pieces, but a plot that leaves a lot to be desired. That said it is still entertaining enough and Malek does his best at his portrayal of the CIA computer nerd thrust into a world that he is ill equipped to handle but nonetheless his very particular set of skills at the keyboard enable him to win the day over those bad terrorist types. It has a strong supporting cast with Holt McCallany and Laurence Fishburne as dependable as ever, but Jon Bernthal is wasted with about as much as three minutes in total of screen time out of a total run time of just a nudge over two hours. You can either choose to watch it at your local big screen Odeon or wait to catch it via streaming - either way you could do worse!

'The Amateur' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

OPPENHEIMER : Tuesday 25th July 2023.

'OPPENHEIMER' which I saw at my local independent movie theatre this week is an MA15+ Rated American biographical war drama film Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Christopher Nolan, and is based on the 2005 biography 'American Prometheus' by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Christopher Nolan's prior film making credits take in his debut with 'Following' in 1998 then 'Momento' in 2000, 'Insomnia' in 2002, 'Inception' in 2010, 'Interstellar' in 2014, 'Dunkirk' in 2017, 'Tenet' in 2020 with the 'Batman' trilogy in between time in 2005, 2008 and 2012. The film cost US$100M to produce, saw its World Premiere showcasing in Paris on 11th July, was released in the UK, the USA and here in Australia last week, has so far grossed US$242M and has garnered universal critical acclaim.

The film opens in 1926 with a dishevelled looking 22-year-old J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) who has trouble sleeping at night and grapples with homesickness and anxiety while studying under the British experimental physicist Patrick Blackett (James D'Arcy) at the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge, England. Oppenheimer finds Blackett demanding and injects an apple he leaves on his desk with cyanide which visiting scientist Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) almost bites into but not before Oppenheimer thrusts it out of his hand and into a waste bin. Oppenheimer completes his PhD in physics at the University of Gottingen in Germany, where he is introduced to Werner Heisenberg (Matthias Schweighofer). He returns to the US, in the hope of expanding quantum physics research, and starts teaching at the University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology. During this period, he meets Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), a member of the US Communist Party with whom he has an on-again off-again affair until her eventual suicide in 1944, and later his future wife Katherine 'Kitty' Puening (Emily Blunt), a biologist and ex-Communist whom Oppenheimer married in 1940 and with whom he has two children.

US Army General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) enlists Oppenheimer to spearhead the Manhattan Project in order to develop an atomic bomb after Oppenheimer assures Groves that he has no communist sympathies. Oppenheimer, a Jew, is particularly focused on the Nazis and the very likely possibility that they have their own nuclear weapons programme underway, headed up by Werner Heisenberg. 

Oppenheimer recruits a scientific team that includes Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), Isidor Isaac Rabi (David Krumholtz) and David L. Hill (Rami Malek), to a purpose built town in the middle of nowhere at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to begin work on secretly creating the atomic bomb. During the development, Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) discuss how such a bomb could possibly trigger a chain reaction that has the potential to destroy the world. Oppenheimer also learns of a possible Soviet spy within his ranks who has potentially leaked the Manhattan Project's secretive intelligence data to the Russians.

When Germany surrenders in May 1945 some project scientists cast doubt over the bomb's continued importance. The bomb is completed and the initial 'Trinity' test is successfully conducted on 16th July 1945 just before the Potsdam Conference involving Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin which began on 17th July in Potsdam, Germany. US President Harry S. Truman (Gary Oldman) decides to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th August 1945 respectively forcing Japan's surrender and thrusting Oppenheimer into the public eye as the 'father of the atomic bomb'. Haunted by the immense destruction and suffering the bombs caused, Oppenheimer personally urges Truman to use restraint in developing even more powerful weapons, saying that he has 'blood on his hands'. Truman perceives Oppenheimer's anxiety as a weakness, and states that, as President, he alone bears responsibility for the bomb's use. Upon leaving the Oval Office feeling very dejected Truman says to his aide that he doesn't ever want to see that 'scientist crybaby again'. Oppenheimer continues feeling intense remorse.

Oppenheimer is outspoken, in government circles, about any further nuclear development, especially of the hydrogen bomb, positioning him against Teller. His steadfast opinions become a point of contention amid the escalating Cold War with the Soviet Union. Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jnr.), chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, has a personal beef against Oppenheimer for publicly dismissing his concerns over the export of radioisotopes and, as per Strauss' belief, badmouthing him to Einstein. 

At a four week kangaroo court hearing in 1954 intended to remove Oppenheimer from any and all political influence, and as largely cross examined by Roger Robb (Jason Clarke), Oppenheimer is betrayed by Teller's and other associates' testimony, including the final nail in the coffin delivered by William L. Borden (David Dastmalchian),stating that he firmly believed that J. Robert Oppenheimer was an agent of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile Strauss exploits Oppenheimer's associations with current and former communists such as Tatlock and Oppenheimer's brother Frank (Dylan Arnold).

Despite Rabi and several other allies testifying in Oppenheimer's defence, Oppenheimer's security clearance is revoked by a vote of 2 -1 although his loyalty to the United States was not brought into question. However, this did damage his public image and reduced to zero his policy influence. Later, at Strauss' Senate confirmation hearing as Secretary of Commerce, Hill exposes Strauss' personal motives in engineering Oppenheimer's downfall, which results in Strauss' confirmation being denied.

In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson presents Oppenheimer the Enrico Fermi Award (awarded to honour scientists of international stature for their lifetime achievement in the development, use, or production of energy) as a gesture of political rehabilitation. It is revealed that Oppenheimer and Einstein's earlier conversation was not about Strauss but rather nuclear weapons and their far-reaching impacts ultimately. Oppenheimer muses whether the Trinity test, to a large extent, his creation, could launch a chain reaction of events that could lead to a nuclear holocaust. 

'Oppenheimer' is possibly Christopher Nolan's best film offering yet, and that's saying something given the quality of his varied back catalogue over the past twenty or so years. Here he has crafted a film that is well scripted, stunningly photographed, and packed with emotion, intrigue, a stellar ensemble cast and an underlying message that is just as important today as it was almost eighty years ago. Cillian Murphy gives a tour-de-force performance as the torn and troubled Oppenheimer wrestling with his own inner demons over the magnitude of his creation and the implications for all of humankind, and is more than ably supported by Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jnr. This is a compelling film that tells the story of war, the people wielding the power and who you can ultimately trust that needs to be viewed on the biggest screen you can get to. It deserves all the accolades bestowed upon it come awards season, and despite it being largely a dialogue driven drama grips the attention from the get go, until the final half hour where the story drags just a little - but don't let that put you off. One of the must see films of the year for sure. Also starring Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Dane DeHaan, Matthew Modine, Scott Grimes, Alden Ehrenreich, James Remar and Olivia Thirlby.

'Oppenheimer' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

AMSTERDAM : Tuesday 11th October 2022

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'AMSTERDAM' earlier this week, and this mystery comedy film set in the early 1930's is Written, Directed and Co-Produced by David O. Russell whose previous feature film making credits include 'Three Kings' in 1999, 'I Heart Huckabees' in 2004, 'The Fighter' in 2010, 'Silver Linings Playbook' in 2012, 'American Hustle' in 2013 and 'Joy' in 2015. This film saw its World Premier showcasing in New York City on 18th September and was released in the US and here in Australia last week week, having cost US$80M to produce, has so far recouped just US$12M and has garnered mixed critical reviews. 

In 1918, Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) is sent at the insistence of his very well connected and very well to do estranged wife's parents to fight in World War I. While stationed in France, Burt meets and becomes good friends with African-American soldier Harold Woodsman (John David Washington), both under the command of affable General Bill Meekins (Ed Bagley Jnr.) After they sustain severe and multiple shrapnel injuries in battle, including Burt's loss of an eye, the pair are nursed back to health by Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie), an outgoing nurse, whom they form a close bond with also.

When Burt and Harold have sufficiently recovered from their wounds, the three move to Amsterdam, where they live together and become close friends spending their time living life to the full, until Burt announces his return to New York City to be with his wife Beatrice (Andrea Riseborough). Harold, who has fallen in love with Valerie and she with him, also leaves to return to New York City and fulfill his own aspirations, but before he leaves Valerie leaves him unexpectedly leaving just a hand written note bidding him farewell. 

Fast forward to New York City in 1933 and Burt has opened his own medical practice catering to injured veterans of the war and still remains firm friends with Harold, who is now a lawyer, while they have not heard from Valerie since they left Amsterdam some fifteen years previously. Harold asks Burt to perform a post-mortem on Bill Meekins, now a senator who served as the commander of their regiment during the war, at the urgent request of Meekins' daughter Elizabeth (Taylor Swift), who believes that he was murdered. Burt performs the post-mortem aided by nurse Irma St. Clair (Zoe Saldana). The post-mortem reveals that Meekins stomach contained an unusual amount of a grey liquid indicating a mercury laced poison leading them to conclude that this must have been the cause of death. Burt and Harold meet with Elizabeth to talk about the post-mortem results, but she is suddenly killed when a hitman pushes her under the wheels of an oncoming car. The hitman frames Burt and Harold for her death during the ensuing melee, while they flee the scene on foot as the Police arrive.

In an attempt to clear their names Burt and Harold try to determine who had led Elizabeth to hire them. This leads them to wealthy textile heir Tom Voze (Rami Malek) and his antagonising wife Libby (Anya Taylor-Joy). At the Voze residence they reunite with Valerie, and learn that she is Tom's sister and was the one who convinced Elizabeth to hire them, knowing that ultimately they could be trusted. Valerie is now under constant supervision by Tom and Libby, who claim that she suffers from vertigo, a nerve disease and various other ailments though the medications Tom and Libby urge her to take every day could just be the real issue. Tom suggests to Burt and Harold that they should talk to Gil Dillenbeck (Robert De Niro), a famous and decorated veteran who now advocates for WWI veteran's rights and was close friends with Meekins.

Burt's initial attempts to contact Dillenbeck fail, and meanwhile Harold and Valerie spend the day at her home, where they notice the hitman, Tarim Milfax (Timothy Olyphant) maintaining a watchful on their movements. They follow him to a forced sterilisation clinic owned by a mysterious organisation known as the 'Council of Five'. After a fight with Milfax, Harold and Valerie catch-up once more with Burt. Valerie takes them to New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel where they meet Paul Canterbury (Mike Myers) an MI6 spy, maker of glass eyes and an ornithologist and Henry Norcross (Michael Shannon) a US Naval Intelligence Officer, maker of glass eyes, ornithologist and partner of Canterbury - Valerie's benefactors from Amsterdam who are secretly spies masquerading under their other guises. Paul and Henry explain that the Council of Five are planning to overthrow the American government and that Dillenbeck can help them foil their plot.

The three finally are granted a meeting with Dillenbeck having got past his gatekeeper wife, and who is offered US$40K from a fat middle aged man on behalf of an unnamed benefactor to deliver a speech rallying veterans to forcibly remove President Franklin D. Roosevelt from the White House and install Dillenbeck as a puppet dictator in his place. Dillenbeck agrees and plans to speak at a reunion gala that Burt and Harold are hosting, in order to draw out whoever is behind the plot.

At the reunion event, Dillenbeck instead makes his own speech instead of the one he was paid to say. Milfax, from the rafters directly above the stage has intentions to shoot Dillenbeck for going against the plan, but Harold and Valerie spot him and are able to thwart him in time. Milfax is arrested, while the Council of Five are revealed to be four industry leaders, including Tom, who are fanatically obsessed with Benito Mussolini, Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler and have designs on making America a fascist state, with Dillenbeck becoming the fifth member of the secretive cabal, or so they had thought.

Tom and the other leaders are arrested by Police, but are quickly released as such people in high places often were, and so they in turn slander Dillenbeck in the press following their release. Dillenbeck testifies about the incident to Congress and returns home to live out his life. Harold and Valerie leave the country since they cannot be together in the United States aided by a slow boat out of New York organised quickly by Canterbury and Norcross, but not bound for Amsterdam as it will soon enough be overrun with the Gestapo exclaims Norcross, to which Valerie nonchalantly responds with 'who are they?' Burt wishes them farewell and plans to reopen his medical practice and pursue a relationship with Irma, finally coming out of the shadow of his estranged wife and his over bearing in-laws.

I have to say that I am somewhat surprised by the critical drubbing that 'Amsterdam' has received, because I, and the two movie buddies I went with to see this film, enjoyed this latest quirky comedy thriller supported by an ensemble of fine A-list acting talent. The trio of Bale, Washington and Robbie share a screen presence that is a pleasure to watch and between them they rarely miss a beat, delivering their quips, comedic one liners and sight gags with aplomb, and look as though they're having a great time doing it too. The production values and cinematography are also top notch, and whilst the story line zigs and zags, ducks and weaves, it is nonetheless a work of fiction with a modicum of a true story woven into the at times meandering narrative, but it works and all comes together nicely in the end. This may not be David O. Russell's greatest ever work, but as a story of the power of friendship and love; remembering those that exist on the fringes of our society; and thwarting the enemy at the gates, this is an entertaining enough period romp that merits the price of your movie ticket. 

'Amsterdam' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-