Sony Pictures
Hustle – noun
1. energetic activity
2. informal : a dishonest plan for getting money : SCAM
(as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary)
The film American Hustle is inspired by the fascinating story of a real life FBI operation ABSCAM, which aimed to bring down corrupt politicians and through them members of the Mafia.
FBI agent Richie Dimaso (Bradley Cooper) strong-arms a con man Irving Rosenfeld (Chritian Bale) and his mistress Sydney Prosser(Amy Adams) into a government sanctioned operation. The operation is rigged to entrap corrupt politicians, including prominent Mayor Polito (Jeremy Renner), several other highly ranking politicians, and their connections to the Mafia.
Bale’s savvy Irving has to negotiate the incompetence of the FBI agents while mitigating the damage his wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) could do to the operation. This makes trying to pull off the operation just so he and Sydney can go free and remain off the radar from top mafia boss Victor Tellegioall all the more difficult.
I should have loved this film.
I wanted to love this film.
It’s packed with some of my favorite actors. It’s a genre that I keep going back to again and again. I love “life-is-stranger-than-fiction” and “based on actual events” movies. Donnie Brasco. Argo. BlacKkKlansman. All are movies based on real events. All take place in the 1970s. All are riveting in their own way. American Hustle should have joined the list for me, but writer/ director David O. Russell missed the mark.
American Hustle itself is a bit of a hustle. What could have been an intense drama or crime thriller, slogged along. The film is a vehicle to enjoy 1970s flash, flair, and fashion and watch some great performances, but the viewer has to trudge through a clunky story to get there. Russell is in love with his actors. He pushes the dialog and holds on the scenes for too long, just to keep watching them. Often the handheld camera follows the actor like a stalker with what looks like careless framing and movement that is distracting.
It has been said that a good portion of the scenes were improvised. Sometimes beautiful moments can come out of an actor improvising. However, putting Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper in the same scene with improvisation is a mistake. Putting Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence in the same scene with improvisation is a mistake. It puts Cooper and Lawrence at a marked disadvantage. It’s not that either of them can act, they can, but not at the same level as Bale and Adams. Watching Jennifer Lawrence try to keep up with Christain Bale is painful. It’s only Bale’s reaction to Lawrence’s character that sells the scene. I would have loved to swap Jennifer Lawrence and Elisabeth Röhm (who played Polito’s wife, Dolly). Röhm who is mostly known for television, could have sunk her teeth into Rosalyn’s character and gone toe-to-toe with Bale.
On the other side of the coin, throw Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Jeremy Renner in a scene together and that is where some of the magic happens. It is the glue that held the film together for me. Robert De Niro has a wonderful little cameo as the Mafia heavy. De Niro’s performance shows that sometimes less is more.
But even these masterful performances can’t make up for a script that needed another draft. The way Irving and Sydney get dragged along deeper into ABSCAM feels plodding. I caught myself looking at my watch. By the time the “twist” happens at the end of the film, it feels rushed and added on. It’s like someone realized they had to wrap everything up and found the simplest fix for the situation.
Whether it was the actual written script or a result of actor improvisation, there were some glaring anachronistics, like Jennifer Lawrence quoting a book that hadn’t been written yet. It might seem insignificant to some to point it out, but it was integral to the motivation of the scene.
For me if you are going to do a period piece, then make sure you get the details right. The god is in the details.
Extras include new additional scenes, previously released deleted & Extended Scenes, and archival making of featurette.
I remember seeing the huge amount of favorable press for American Hustle when it was originally released. I am unsure if it is a case where the film has just not aged well, and I missed out on the experience that others who like the film had because I didn’t see it when they did. I honestly can’t say I see what folks were so excited about.
While American Hustle has all the trappings of a multi-Oscar nominated film, it feels like the glamorous costumes and settings are a con man’s sleight-of-hand to distract you from an uneven film.
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