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In simplest terms, Jai Bhim can be likened to 'To Kill A Mockingbird'.

It is a shocking, moving, heart rending and poetic tale, told with patience and courage. The execution of the tale is epic in proportion, and the ground which must be covered to achieve this is carefully, successfully plotted for us, the viewer. That it is based on the determined work of a living person, who strove to have justice reach the poorest of the poor in India, makes this achievement in cinema and storytelling, hugely satisfying. It's a damn good story and piece of film making from a movie industry which is showing itself equal to any in the world.

While Amsterdam isn't perfect it is certainly masterful. It luxuriates in period style and ensemble acting. The obviousness of the cast and cameos is part of the incongruous story telling, and David O. Russell nails it.

Russell's homage to film noir, droll comedy and '30s style intrigue is the point of the film, not the drama of the story or plot.

He offers us intimate portraits and performances with a cast at the peak of its craft and cinematic powers.

This banquet is the real entertainment of Amsterdam.

Russell's bleeding of high contrast natural light into many scenes adds a further homage to the period, and the translucent lighting of Hollywood black and white film making.

Of the many freedoms Russell pursues in the making and the messages of this film, it is the film making itself which is a comment on anti facism. For those who resent the fact that this movie doesn't spoon feed, think of it as if you're watching 'Knives Out' without the painting by numbers.

And, if you're interested in the inspiration for Christian Bale's glass eyed Bert Berendsen, take a look at any work by (Columbo) Peter Falk.

In fact, I believe Bale chooses to invoke Falk as a personal and entertaining homage to a fine and underrated American actor.

Joanna Hogg's script constructs life at an eighties London film school, and captures the era to the T.

I was an actor working with Melbourne, Swinburne RMIT film students at that same time. The parallel's between Joanna's story here and the general, dystopian horror Swinburne film students operated under, are uncanny.

Despite myself, and as well made as this film is, I have to say it will probably only appeal to a niche audience. It is beautifully cast and executed, and worth watching for numerous reason, but overtly entertaining it isn't.

In me, it re-triggered a level of ire toward the hack and snake instructors who nested in eighties film schools. People whose creative instinct, if they ever had one, had long left their being, to be replaced by an unerring, subtle undermining of student confidence, and a bald faced, polite dishonesty they measured would ensure them the longest teaching tenure.

You'll see a bit of that in this film.

What I didn't see in ' The Souvenir' was any intimation of the effects of that long term poison on the development and wellbeing of would be film makers. It was nice to see Richard Ayoade on screen. He is sadly, accurately brilliant as the auteur from hell.