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Movie review: High tension in heist flick ‘American Hustle’
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"American Hustle" is stylized and cool, even though the characters are decidedly neither. In fact pretty much every major character in the film is about ready to boil over or explode. It’s this pressure cooker of a film where so many characters are at odds with each other and it all keeps ratcheting up and pushing them to explosion. All the while the film is submerged in filmic cool, with great music and visual style.
I found myself regularly admiring the film’s commitment to the period it was portraying. The hairstyles, the fashion, all of it helped to create the atmosphere. But perhaps even more impressive was the production design which really transported us to a different time. Everything down to the wallpaper was meticulously chosen to create the sense that we are somewhere else entirely.
The story itself is something we’ve probably heard before. It’s a game of cons, with one con piling up on another. We’ve got Irving, played by Christian Bale, who has learned that he is one of the people who gets, not who gets got. So along with some legitimate businesses like a dry cleaning business he has some hustles like art dealing and fraud that has to do with leading clients into believing that he can get them loans. He preys on the desperate and uses that desperation to make himself rich. Why? Because the schmucks want it and they deserve what they’re getting.
He brings the alluring Sydney, played by Amy Adams, into the fold. She brings her own flair to the con, and together they bring in even more action. Through a series of montages and VOs reminiscent of Scorsese sequences (the comparisons between this and that director’s work aren’t unwarranted) we find out how the “business” of it works. What’s interesting here is the contrasting VOs that we get which shed light on how the characters perceive themselves and each other.
While Irv and Sydney are successful in their cons, they cross paths with Bradley Cooper’s Richie, an unstable FBI agent. Richie wants to reel in big fish. He uses the leverage he has against the scheming couple to force them to help him go after bigger targets. Irv and Sydney’s relationship is strained by this, as well as Irv’s problems with his wife, played by Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence gives another brilliant performance here.
Rosalyn Rosenfeld (Jennifer Lawrence) & Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) in the Grand Old AC Hotel powder room in Columbia Pictures' 'American Hustle.' americanhustle-movie.com
The wife Ros is so conflicted. She’s obviously mentally unstable. And she knows how to manipulate Irv. We see how terrible she can be to him. But we also see how she can turn on the charm. She can be the life of the party, but she can also be the same person sticking a knife in your gut. It’s a compelling performance that plays off of and enhances the other performances around her.
No one here is a slouch. And while this is ostensibly a heist/crime caper, this film really works more as a character drama. There’s tension between Irv and Sydney. We don’t know if Sydney is playing Richie, or if she’s really tired of Irv and she wants to be with Richie. Richie thinks he’s playing Irv, but we don’t know how he feels about Sydney. And Ros is the wild card who has control of Irv. It’s this complicated web of relationships and volatile personalities that keeps this film moving and makes it exciting.
As with any underworld drama this escalates as new players are introduced and the characters move higher up in the food chain. The tension comes in and there are moments when you’ll hold your breath because of how high the stakes have been raised. The fact that everyone is conning someone else and we as the audience know that things could unravel at any moment keeps us watching. And with these shifting allegiances we come to understand the characters and their motivations.
The movie is strongest when it shows us the varied wants of these characters and how they fall on the moral compass that the film is regularly reorienting. I wouldn’t say that any of these characters are likeable, but the film successfully makes them all sympathetic. We might not like them, but we wind up caring about them and whether they succeed or not.
Now the question is does the film hold up to all of its Oscar hype? I think that in terms of pure filmmaking, it definitely stands out as very good work. The film is clearly accomplished on a formal level, and it does deserve the attention it has gotten so far. However, when I left the film, I found myself thinking it was cool and exciting, but it didn’t really mean much. It’s largely a work of style over substance. It treads familiar ground, and while it does it in an outstanding and entertaining manner, it doesn’t do anything necessarily new. It’s definitely a film worth watching, but it doesn’t seem to be saying anything new or important. — BM, GMA News
"American Hustle" is now showing in Metro Manila theaters.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own.
No one here is a slouch. And while this is ostensibly a heist/crime caper, this film really works more as a character drama. There’s tension between Irv and Sydney. We don’t know if Sydney is playing Richie, or if she’s really tired of Irv and she wants to be with Richie. Richie thinks he’s playing Irv, but we don’t know how he feels about Sydney. And Ros is the wild card who has control of Irv. It’s this complicated web of relationships and volatile personalities that keeps this film moving and makes it exciting.
As with any underworld drama this escalates as new players are introduced and the characters move higher up in the food chain. The tension comes in and there are moments when you’ll hold your breath because of how high the stakes have been raised. The fact that everyone is conning someone else and we as the audience know that things could unravel at any moment keeps us watching. And with these shifting allegiances we come to understand the characters and their motivations.
The movie is strongest when it shows us the varied wants of these characters and how they fall on the moral compass that the film is regularly reorienting. I wouldn’t say that any of these characters are likeable, but the film successfully makes them all sympathetic. We might not like them, but we wind up caring about them and whether they succeed or not.
Now the question is does the film hold up to all of its Oscar hype? I think that in terms of pure filmmaking, it definitely stands out as very good work. The film is clearly accomplished on a formal level, and it does deserve the attention it has gotten so far. However, when I left the film, I found myself thinking it was cool and exciting, but it didn’t really mean much. It’s largely a work of style over substance. It treads familiar ground, and while it does it in an outstanding and entertaining manner, it doesn’t do anything necessarily new. It’s definitely a film worth watching, but it doesn’t seem to be saying anything new or important. — BM, GMA News
"American Hustle" is now showing in Metro Manila theaters.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own.
