The True Story Behind The Comedic Mystery Thriller

Also sometimes called the Wall Street Putsch, the Business Plot came as the massive economic depression that followed the 1929 stock market crash was at its worst. Millions were out of a job and Hoovervilles — shantytowns named for the president who presided over the crash and a flurry of ineffective relief programs — sprung up all over the country. In the face of this Franklin Roosevelt won the 1932 election in a landslide.

Not everyone was so enthused that Roosevelt had won. Many of America's captains of industry and finance were, in fact, quite panicked by his campaign promises. In 1934, Smedley Butler, a retired major general, testified before a congressional committee that he had been approached by a man representing a consortium of millionaires and titans of industry. Butler alleged that they wanted him to lead an army of military veterans to march on Washington, arrest Roosevelt, and install a dictatorship.

It's here that the events in "Amsterdam" overlap with history the most. Robert De Niro's character, General Gil Dillenbeck, is strongly based on Butler. Of course, Butler refused to go along with the Business Plot, and his testimony was dismissed as nothing more than a hoax. Even newspapers like the New York Times refused to take it seriously. Today, most historians agree that the Business Plot was alarmingly real, though how close it was to being carried out, and how effective it might have been, are different matters.