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Saturday, March 1, 2014
AWARDS SEASON 2014
MOVIE REVIEW
American Hustle
70's Souls, Hidden, Bared
And Forever Double-Crossing
Christian
Bale as Irving, Amy Adams as Sydney and Bradley Cooper as Richie in "American
Hustle".
Columbial Pictures
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Saturday,
March 1,
2014
When I first saw David O. Russell's "American Hustle" last November I thought
little of it. Entertaining and fun, with an excellent 1970s soundtrack.
A Martin Scorsese tribute with a "GoodFellas" flavor -- or rather, a
discotheque "Mean Streets", if you will. Three months later I still feel
the same. Based loosely on the "ABSCAM" political scandal of the late
1970's and early 80's, "American Hustle" triangulates each of its three main
characters, who try to run away from themselves or the masters they are supposed
to serve.
Irving (Christian Bale's portrayal is based on Mel Weinberg), a fearful,
insecure man whose emotions are worn on his sleeve, tandems with the shrewd
Sydney (Amy Adams) as con artists and lovers. Both are recruited by Richie
(Bradley Cooper), an FBI agent, to entrap New Jersey politicians suspected of
taking bribes. One of those politicians is Carmine (Jeremy Renner),
Camden's mayor, who "cares about the people."
"American Hustle" is about stripping down and exposing people literally and
metaphorically. Mr. Russell's film, layered yet strangely shallow, uses
costume as a key component of its main engine of human behavior and deception.
The reveal is seen in the mirror, most notably in the film's opening scene, as
Irving's comb-over comes up a cropper, exposed for all it's worth (as is the
legendary 70s Cosmopolitan magazine nude photo of Burt Reynolds, whom
Irving slightly resembles.) You can't miss the vanity, or lack thereof, in
the giant photo, plastered in the background of the film's Cosmopolitan office.
The bottom line is, every character receives his or her nicks and cuts to the
face and soul. Some try to save face. Others don't even try to hide.
In Irving there's a nobility in being dishonest even if it is done in the name
of trying to be true. To turn a phrase, reinvention (and adaptation) in
the characters of "American Hustle" is the mother of necessity, and the film's
masking and unmasking of its fertile and volatile creatures underscores that
point. It's a point however that only repeats and never evolves within the
story to elevate it to an interesting or intriguing place. "The art of
survival is a story that never ends," Irving narrates, but that point is played
on a loop. The film ends up being two hours and 18 minutes long when it
should have been an hour and 45 minutes at best.
Mr. Russell's push-and-pull, hard-and-soft film belongs to the 1970s but that
isn't necessarily a compliment. Sure, most any nostalgia about that or any
time period, if done right, will make more than just a good impression.
But it isn't that "American Hustle" isn't done right; it's that it isn't a film
that particularly says much about anything. As the film ended my immediate
reaction was, "so what?", and, "and?"-- in that order. So con-artists can
con and hustlers get hustled. It was a no-frills, whoop-de-damn-do
revelation. As a result the hustle in the film is less ingenious than
empty.
There's little doubt that Mr. Russell is a more than competent filmmaker who
demands an emotional gamut and palpable desperation from his actors. While
he has grown in his craft as a director I'm not sure that his films have
necessarily got better. There's a freshness and originality to "Flirting
With Disaster" and "Three Kings", two of Mr. Russell's 1990s efforts, that still
endures, that tower even, over
"The Fighter" (2010), "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012) and this
latest film, which, frankly is instantly forgettable.
In paying homage to
one of the masters of cinema, "American Hustle" winds up looking and feeling
more like a lukewarm edition of "Boogie Nights", Paul Thomas Anderson's film
that also pays a tribute of sorts to Mr. Scorsese. (In "American Hustle"
an uncredited cameo sees an actor wearing glasses that resemble Mr. Scorsese's.)
Amy Adams, at least, gets to do something different and stark, with a raw, sexy
and vulnerable turn as a little girl lost but fighting to reveal her true self.
It's a good, though not especially great portrait. While Jennifer Lawrence
hams it up in a small role as Rosalyn, Irving's estranged wife, and blows away
her fellow actors, it's mostly skin-deep work, adroitly created on the fly.
Still, Ms. Lawrence towers, so much so that she seems to be in a different movie
from her cast mates.
The gem acting in "American Hustle" comes from Louis C.K as Richie's superior,
whose source of worry is overreach and the incompletion of an ice fishing story.
Alessandro Nivola is also great, unrecognizable as a Brooklyn district attorney.
The duo manage to deflect the film's campy and golden stagings, and when they
are onscreen the mayhem stops -- on occasion.
Written by Eric Warren Singer and the director, "American Hustle", a film
sometimes as much at war with itself as its characters are, has its share of
snappy lines and costumes. Its participants look good but, as Fernando
Lamas (and Billy Crystal) once said, "it's better to look good than to feel
good." I wish I could have felt good and "mahvelous" about "American
Hustle", but it is a largely unremarkable experience.
Also with: Michael Peña, Elisabeth Rohm, Shea Whigham.
"American Hustle" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for
pervasive language, some sexual content and brief violence. The film's running time is
two hours and 18 minutes.
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