Robert Mitchum was a fine, fine actor--one of my favorites. However, later in life, instead of retiring he kept making films...most of which were incredibly poor. "The Amsterdam Kill" is one of these poor films he became known for in the late 1970s-90s. Now I am not saying ALL his films from this period were terrible...but most clearly were cheap and forgettable...or worse.
Larry Quinlan (Mitchum) is a disgraced ex-DEA agent who is approached by heroin kingpin Chung Wei (Keye Luke). Apparently, there has been a major gang war within the drug community and many people have been killed. Chung wants out and he says he's willing to give the DEA a lot of major drug dealers and their suppliers. Why he doesn't go right to the DEA? Chung is worried the agency has been compromised and he only trusts Quinlan...which is odd since he was thrown out of the agency for stealing! When the DEA follows up on Chung's leads, the first one pans out just fine...but the next two are complete screw-ups and the agency fails to bust anyone. What gives? Is Chung lying? Is some insider mucking things up? What's next?
In addition to Mitchum and Luke, there are a few other famous but down on their luck Hollywood actors in this one...Richard Egan, Leslie Nielsen (before his career resurgence thanks to "Airplane!") and Bradford Dillman. I can only assume they needed money pretty badly to be in a cheapo production like this one. And, when I say cheapo, the titles appear really cheap and are hard to read...and the film just has a 'made on the cheap' look to it.
So despite looking cheap, is this any good? Well, it's not horrible...though the ending is ridiculously over-the-top and a bit silly. Plus the film relies too much on action and not enough on acting. Not a complete waste of time if you ecide to see it.
By the way, it doesn't ruin the film at all, but the film has some weird gun physics. In one scene, a guy with a machine gun shoots some folks tied into chair...and they go flying backwards like they were kicked by mules. Well, bullets DON'T work that way...and any sort of research would have revealed that to the filmmakers.
