Amsterdam Empire Review
Director: Jonas Govaerts and Max Porcelijn
Date Created: 2025-10-30 15:33
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Amsterdam Empire Review: Netflix’s Dutch crime thriller is created by Piet Matthys, Nico Moolenaar, and Bart Uytdenhouwen, directed by Jonas Govaerts and Max Porcelijn. The show stars Famke Janssen as Betty Jonkers, Jacob Derwig as Jack van Doorn, Elise Schaap as Marjolein Hofman, Jade Olieberg as Katja van Doorn and others. The seven-episode series follows Jack, the dominant proprietor of a coffee shop empire called The Jackal, whose business is as much about Amsterdam’s booming weed culture as it is about coffee. The story starts off with Jack’s shooting, after which it falls back one month earlier, showing how his showy lifestyle of fame, affairs, and betrayal slowly unravels.
Amsterdam Empire Review
I was indeed interested in the Netflix series Amsterdam Empire, as the trailer hinted at a stylish Dutch crime drama with revenge, secrets, and an insight into the Amsterdam cannabis world. It had all the stuff that usually interests me: crime, ambition, betrayal, and complicated relationships. The more the episodes went on, however, I struggled to keep up. There’s definitely some heat of promise there, but somewhere between its slick veneer and confused tone, the show lost the emotional edge it could’ve had.
The Amsterdam Empire series has amazing visuals. The series looks cinematically beautiful as it captures Amsterdam, its canals, its nightlife, and its neon-lit coffee shops. You could well be sure that Netflix spent a decent amount of money on it. It’s a quiet performer in the story, capturing the glamour and the chaos in Jack’s life. Unfortunately, the look could only carry the series so far. Behind the pretty pictures, too many times, the story is superficial and predictable.
My main issue with the series is its muddled tone. At times, it aims to be a hard-hitting crime thriller on ambition and what happens when one overreaches; other times, it crosses over the border into melodrama and becomes the kind of soap opera that one cannot help but mock. One’s reading one intense standoff or interrogation, and the next one’s thinking that something’s just a bit too much, or standing on one’s head laughing. That inconsistency makes it hard to care about the characters. Even the big moments-betrayals, killingsn’t pack an emotional punch because the show never fully commits to what it wants to be.
But to discuss characters, they’re both this Dutch series’ greatest strength and weakness: the writing never gets deep enough to show us what truly drives Jack van Doorn, a man who built his empire with charm and ruthlessness. Her husband, Betty, comes to life on screen. Famke’s return to a role in the Dutch language after years of work in Hollywood is pure joy to behold as she brings the character depth with anger, heartbreak, and strength.
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Even her powerful presence, however, cannot make up for the vacuous script. Marjolein Hofman, Jack’s mistress and favourite TV hostess, is a wonderful character in the making, but her role is underwritten. Jack’s love triangle with Betty and Marjolein ought to have been passionate and rich, but far too often feels repetitive and forced.
The more one sinks into Netflix’s Amsterdam Empire, the more it seems to lean toward style instead of actual substance in telling an actually engaging story. The pacing is weird; sometimes there are episodes that drag along at a glacial pace, others which fly by without notable plot turns. There is plenty of yelling, scheming, and double-crossing, but not a lot of actual emotion or tension. It’s like brawling over money and pride without really caring why.
All the same, I would not say the Amsterdam Empire was totally terrible. There are moments of brilliance where the show does work absolutely perfectly, specifically when the show puts its focus on Amsterdam’s empire of coffee shops and the politics that go with it. The idea of depicting how legal weed businesses keep running in the world of crime would have been compelling. It is unfortunate that the series barely scratches the surface of this concept and returns hastily to its love-and-revenge drama.
Performance-wise, most of the cast does a decent job. Famke Janssen is clearly a standout; she comes across as confident and hardy even when her character is making some fairly dodgy choices. Jacob Derwig playing Jack is good on screen, but fails to quite reach the level of emotional connection. Elise Schaap and Jade Olieberg add a bit of depth to their supporting roles, but the script does not leave them much to work with.
Netflix Amsterdam Empire Review: Summing Up
By the end of the Dutch crime drama Amsterdam Empire, I was left with mixed feelings. The show has a genuinely intriguing concept: glamour, power, betrayal, and revenge are all those things that really mingle together in an unforgettable story. It is pricey-looking, theatrically sounding, but unengaging.
All in all, it is a series that can be much better but is a worst-case scenario average. A little more heart, better writing, and keeping up its tone could have made it much better. Still, it’s an interesting attempt by the Dutch producers to present the world with their own type of glamour and crime.
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