American Hustle (2013)
Directed by David O.
Russell
Columbia, 138, R (for
language and eye-popping cleavage)
* * *
American Hustle is
typical of David O’ Russell films like Spanking
the Monkey, Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings, and Silver Linings Playbook in that there’s less here than meets the
eye. By his own admission, Russell is more interested in the external trappings
he commits to film than in narrative integrity. It shows–in good and bad ways.
American Hustle was
inspired by the Abscam scandal. The time is 1978, just two years after New
Jersey voters approved gambling and the year the first Atlantic City casino
opened its glitzy doors. Disco was peaking, fashion was loud and ugly, the
economy was in the toilet, and factories were folding like a man holding unmatched
poker cards. The late 70s were like a disco mirror ball–reflective surfaces
devoid of depth that only dazzled when the room was dark. The hustle was a
dance rage; it was also a popular economic activity. The FBI launched the
Abscam operation (for Arab Scam) to nab hucksters pawning off American assets (and
casino licenses) to the highest foreign bidders. The FBI’s fake Middle Eastern
business consortium eventually netted some high-powered boys with their fingers
in the wrong piggy bank, including six U.S. Representatives, Mayor Angelo
Errichetti of Camden, and U. S. Senator Pete Williams of New Jersey. Russell
nails the time period’s shallowness, greed, and desperation.
The tale centers on Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), a low-level
con man with a beer gut, an appalling comb over, and a tacky office from which
he deals fake art and arranges crooked loan deals. He also operates a few
legitimate dry cleaning joints at which clients routinely abandon their
threads, because they were too smashed to recall where they left them, or
because they were hustled out of the wherewithal to pay the cleaning bill. Irving’s
love life and shady business activity leap to the next level when he meets
Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), whose affected British accent, fake aristocratic
credentials, plunging necklines, and slit skirts could con a monk out of his
habit. Their sweet operation and affair goes awry when FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley
Cooper) nails them and offers them a choice between assisting the Feds or
rotting in jail–something free bird Sydney couldn’t tolerate and Irving wants
to avoid, as he also has a wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), and an adopted
son to whom he’s mightily attached. DiMaso would rather fry big fish, but are any
of them up to the racket necessary to contain oily politicians and smooth
Mafiosi that leave corpses on the street and ask questions later? (Check out
Robert De Niro’s cameo.)
American Hustle is
part drama, part comedy, and lots of eye candy–debauched discotheques, raucous
Italian-American restaurants, big cars, and urban blight slum tours. But there’s
no candy sweeter than Amy Adams. One wag has nominated the double-sided tape
she wears for “Best Supporting Actress,” and he’s not wrong–it’s all that
stands between Adams and a full display of that with which Nature endowed her.
Lawrence is also a head-turner, both for her va-voom physicality and for her
chameleon-like ability to be everything except what you’d expect. Both women
are amazing in their roles and have rightly carried off Golden Globe awards.
Jeremy Renner is also superb as Mayor Carmine Polito, a puffed hair Joe Peschi
look-alike and Errichetti stand-in who is slowly reeled into things he probably
neither understands nor desires. (Entrapment rules were revamped after Abscam.)
This is the good news. The bad is Christian Bale is miscast.
It’s not his fault and he worked hard to get into the character as it was
written, but that character stretches credulity to the point where we stop
believing it. A knockout like Sydney could do much better than an overweight,
underdressed, intellectual lightweight like Irving. Louis C. K. is also miscast
as DiMaso’s superior, Stoddard Thurston, and does little except provide some
very loud screaming and some very cheap slapstick. Bradley Cooper is more
present than impressive, and most of the male parts in American Hustle are all surfaces–like the mirror ball. A bit like
the script. The plot seems more complicated than it is because there are
continuity holes the size of Bally’s Casino.
I suspect that surfaces were Russell’s intention. Everyone
hustles. Got that. But films with
more double crosses than a tic-tack-toe tournament have been done many times,
and better than this–think Body Heat, The
Grifters, House of Games, Intolerable Cruelty, The Spanish Prisoner, Up in the Air, and The Sting. Boston Globe reviewer Ty Burr liked American Hustle, but called it “an exuberant con job of a movie.”
Con job is harsh, but David O. Russell reminds me of the wicked smart kid that
should be my top scholar but is content to carry an 82 average and hopes he can
con me into a B by semester’s end. Not this time: American Hustle gets a B-. Rob Weir
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment