The Fragile Beauty of Truth in the film Amsterdam

The Fragile Beauty of Truth
By Rev. Jane Herring

The 2022 film Amsterdam, directed by David O. Russell, is a wild, stylish tangle of murder mystery, art-house absurdity, and political thriller. Its coloring and tone evoke a Wes Anderson feel—without constantly winking at the audience.
Beneath its quirky surface lies a startling historical truth: the little-known 1933 plot to overthrow the U.S. government and install a dictator.

Yep. The “Business Plot.”

This scheme was allegedly orchestrated by wealthy industrialists who were unhappy with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. These financiers—many tied to powerful corporate interests—attempted to recruit retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler to lead a coup. Butler, decorated and well-known, was seen as a respected voice among veterans. But instead of going along, he exposed the plan in testimony before Congress. The coup never happened. It was buried by the press, forgotten by many, and never resulted in any convictions. Not one conviction.

Robert De Niro’s character, General Gil Dillenbeck, is a fictionalized version of Smedley Butler. In one of the film’s most powerful scenes, Dillenbeck delivers a speech that uncovers the plot. It’s bold, direct, and grounded in real history—history that remains strangely absent from history textbooks. Or maybe that isn’t so strange. Maybe it’s just criminal.

And then there’s Harold Woodman, played by John David Washington. Harold is a Black World War I veteran who served with the 369th Infantry Regiment, famously known as the Harlem Hellfighters. This unit was real: composed mostly of African American soldiers, they fought heroically under French command because the segregated U.S. military refused to integrate. Despite their valor, these men returned home to racism, poverty, and violence.

By weaving this history into the film’s storyline, Amsterdam calls attention to the dissonance between what America claims to be, what it can be, and what it sometimes is and is not. The fictional trio at the film’s center—Harold, Burt (Christian Bale), and Valerie (Margot Robbie)—are thrown into a plot larger than themselves, but they remain committed to one another, to art, to beauty, and to truth, even in the face of systemic corruption and their own confusions and failings.

While the plot is fictional, the backdrop is alarmingly real—and hauntingly familiar.

The film echoes the 1939 Nazi rally that actually did take place in Madison Square Garden, complete with American flags paired with swastikas. It hints at the seductive, slow-drip spread of fascism—not always imported, sometimes homegrown.

And this is where Amsterdam begins to speak prophetically to our current moment.

Because here we are, in 2025, looking around at the world and wondering if perhaps we are standing again at a dangerous precipice. The world is weary with the language of control and conquest. Our newsfeeds teem with leaders who serve power rather than people, systems that exploit more than they uplift, and too many voices willing to trade truth for certainty… all while claiming to be the real Americans and to be the ones who really care about humanity.

The ancient Buddhist idea of “hungry ghosts” offers an apt metaphor: beings with insatiable cravings, tiny throats, and giant stomachs. They devour endlessly but are never full. In Western lore, we might call them vampires—souls that feed off others to survive. In Biblical Scripture, they echo the beast that endlessly prowls the streets looking for someone to devour. These images speak of what happens when desire untethered from love seeks to rule.

We see these forces today—not only in far-right nationalism or leftist zealotry, but in the desire for domination itself. These forces cloak themselves in ideology, but what they seek is power without mutuality, greatness without grace. People who hide behind messaging and codes to drain the life of others—economically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. The lure of power is as much about chaos and the pleasure of seeing others suffer as it is about control.

Love does not require power. In fact, love becomes greater as power wanes. I’m not speaking of the personal power born of authenticity, but of power that seeks to have power over others, the craving to control.

Whatever name we use—fascism, white supremacy, greed, violence—the danger lies not only in their power, but in the desire for chaos. The extremism of right-wing nationalism that sees no problem with disposing of those who don’t measure up echoes the same dangerous logic as left-wing anarchist movements that claim violence as the only means to oust the “wrong” people from power so the “right” people can take control and manage everyone “correctly.”

These extremist methods offer the illusion of security and control without the messy mutuality of love: order without justice, greatness without humility. Extremism whispers that your neighbor is your enemy and that more power is the only thing worth having. These are the subtle and intoxicating lies of powers that will not have your back once they are done climbing over you to get where they want to be.

Amsterdam refuses that story as the winning narrative. Sure, there is the story of murderous greed. It’s a strange and sometimes overly quirky film. But at its core, it insists on something older and better than the question of who will win world domination and get all the control and money: friendship, beauty, art, loyalty, and love.

As one character says, “You want for your heart and your people to follow the right God home.” You want love, beauty, meaning—and these cannot be bought by military or economic might. They may or may not be provided by your local church either, but you might have a decent chance of finding it at a church, if you find a church that really preaches the Gospel—not nationalism or folklores or transnationalism.

The world is full of nonprofits who feed, heal, house, and care for others—and many do it better than the church. But the church, when it is true to its call, does these things not just as acts of charity, but because we are so full of Christ’s love that we cannot help but love others with whatever means we have. Even the smallest congregation has what it needs to do the work of God, and should never, ever be diminished because its offering doesn’t look like someone else’s.

One of the greatest griefs in my pastoral life is watching members of Christ’s own body hurt and demean one another because they value outcomes more than they value their relationships to one another in Christ. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can turn back. We can take another path. We can follow the Way.

Even those caught in the great machines—chasing wealth, power, or the illusion of security—can still come out and join the great work of love. That invitation is always open.

So what do we do in times like these?

We love.
We tell the truth.
We look for and make beauty. Every day. We go for it again and again.
We stay human. We value humans. We celebrate being human, a fallible and beloved creation meant for love, not destruction born of the pursuit of control and domination.

We choose the right God. And we follow Love home.