Using the closing days of the Seventies might be popular since Argo won an Oscar® and let’s face it, the clothes back then border on clown costumes today!
In all seriousness, Hustle was another demonstration that sometimes Hollywood lets people like David O. Russell make a movie for grown-ups. No car chases, no gun battles, no explosions and no Jim Carrey making talking faces through his buttocks. For some odd reason, award bait overcomes the penny-pinching. If you’re wanting escapism, don’t bother, there’s plenty of “popcorn” (aka crap) movies underway.
Hustle is very similar to Goodfellas.
- It begins at a critical moment in the plot, then jumps back in time to give some exposition on how all the characters got to where they are. When we’re caught up, it moves forward.
- It has Christian Bale and Amy Adams’ characters doing voiceovers about the ongoing events like Ray Liotta did.
- It involves real, historical events. For Hustle, it’s the Abscam busts of a few congressional figures.
- Robert DeNiro shows up.
Still, the movie is fictional, Abscam is just used as the background to put the story and characters into motion.
Bale and Adams are small-time con artists who scam people who can’t get conventional loans due to interest rates being double digits. They get busted by an undercover FBI agent played by Bradley Cooper. The agent makes them a deal, assist the FBI into nabbing four bigger criminals and all charges will be dropped. Instead of fleeing, they take the shifty offer because Bale’s protagonist has a wife (Jennifer Lawrence) and kid in Long Island he can’t abandon.
The plan morphs into creating a honeypot to catch crooked Congressmen taking bribes in exchange for accelerating the transformation of Atlantic City into an east coast Las Vegas.
As things progress, you see there are cons within cons happening between the three and their messy love triangle. Lawrence as the jealous wife with a big mouth throws wrenches into the situation near the end.
You’ll have to watch it to see how things shake out. I was satisfied with the results.
My only complaint was the duration. Hustle drags on about 20-30 minutes too long, similar to Jackie Brown. A little more editing would’ve helped weed out the extraneous scenes or dialog. I have also grown exhausted of seeing Amy Adams in about every other non-event movie I attend. Her performance was fine, especially when the character doesn’t always remember to maintain the fake Brit accent she uses to lure in the marks.
The rest is great. Bale’s elaborate comb-over ritual (yikes!). Cooper’s perm (I always thought it was done with chemicals, not rollers). Louis CK plays Cooper’s boss. DeNiro’s part is a surprise, especially if you know Mafia history. Jeremy Renner has come a long way for me. His portrayal as the NJ mayor doing everything he can to rejuvenate the economy made him a likable patsy. Renner used to get mediocre, predictable roles in 28 Weeks Later and The Town.
I guess my bias toward Hustle is similar to Argo. The key events happened when I was a kid and I remember the general things. I have never looked fondly at the Seventies though; I will never miss the days when people were allowed to smoke indoors or wear super wide lapels. One day I should find a book on Abscam, I was under the impression the stings were Carter’s revenge against certain members who stalled on legislation the president wanted.
Alamo Extras: I arrived within the last five minutes due to other matters related to Christmas Day. What I did catch were commercials from the film’s time period. The funniest was for toupees.