American Hustle

I'll admit the problem is perhaps with me, but while I have been able to find a lot to like in a lot of films by David O. Russell, I just can't fully embrace them.  His last two films (The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook) were hailed to the skies by critics, and showered with awards and nominations.  And while I certainly found plenty to like, I also found them very overrated.  Now here comes American Hustle, which just happens to combine some of the main casts of his last two films.  Once again, it seems destined to get numerous award nominations, and is being praised to the heavens by the nation's top critics.  And once again, I must say it's a good little movie, but certainly nothing earth-shaking or one of the best things I've seen all year. 

Let's focus on the one thing I do agree it deserves to be recognized for - the performances.  Here we have another great performance from Christian Bale (his second in a very short time, after Out of the Furnace from just a couple weeks ago).  Amy Adams has never been as beautiful or as sexy as she is in this performance.  Bradley Cooper is convincing as an overly eager guy in over his head.  And Jennifer Lawrence continues to impress, giving a funny and oddly sympathetic performance.  As long as she keeps on turning in performances like this, she can push out as many of those cash cow Hunger Games movies as she wants.  It's true that David O. Russell has worked with all four of these actors before, but he uses them beautifully, and manages to get a different performance from them each time.  As long as the movie is centered on these performances, it works.

The plot, and the way it is told, is where my problems start.  The story is told out of sequence at times, through different voice over narrators, and generally seems to be in no hurry to get to where its going.  It's a wandering and somewhat unfocused tale of an overweight and balding con artist named Irving (Bale) who learned early on in life how he could manipulate business and customers. (When his father's window business wasn't doing too hot back when Irving was a kid, he went around, smashing people's windows with rocks to help drum up business.) He now runs a chain of laundromats, and does some shady art dealings on the side.  He finds a kindred spirit in Syndey (Adams), a stripper who learns how to seduce much wealthier men in a different way through Irving's schemes.  She soon becomes his partner in crime, as well as his love.

If only Irving wasn't married to Rosalyn (Lawrence), things would be perfect.  He clearly doesn't love her, and the only reason he's with her is because of the son they share.  We get the sense that Rosalyn is not exactly the kind of woman who should be left alone with a kid, seeing as she has a bad habit of starting fires around the kitchen. (Something she casually brushes off, as if it's not a big thing, each time it happens.) Later, she becomes a woman so desperate for excitement in her life, she's willing to put her husband's life in danger to get it.  Lawrence really plays up the somewhat vapid, dangerous nature of her character to great effect, which makes her the stand out performance here.  The early moments of the film deal with Irving finally having a woman he can truly love in his life when he meets Syndey, and how he balances his life with her, and his life at home.

There's a much bigger problem keeping Irving from finding happiness, and that would be young, ambitious FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Cooper).  He busts Irving and Syndey on one of their scams early on, and this gets the guy's mind racing with possibilities of going after even bigger con men.  Specifically, he wants to go into white collar crime, and go after politicians willing to take shady deals and bribes.  He forces Irving and Syndey into working for him, setting up a job to help him catch New Jersey politician, Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner).  As they start to go after even bigger politicians, and as Rosalyn starts getting involved and screwing up the best perfectly laid plans, the mob even gets involved, putting Irving's life on the line.  It certainly sounds like a plot that could accompany a truly great and captivating story, but I don't know, I was never completely taken in by the plot.  While I liked the characters and the performances, the plot never seems to pick up to the speed it's supposed to, and remains quiet and casual when it should be gripping and intense.

American Hustle seems to put too much emphasis on its characters, and not enough on the story it's trying to tell.  This created a strange experience for me, where I was interested in these people and enjoying myself, but never fully wrapped up in the story they were in.  A story like this needs to hold some weight, yet it kind of disappears as soon as you walk out of the theater and into the parking lot.  I remembered certain moments and lines of dialogue, and I remembered the performances, but the plot surrounding it all seemed curiously mute.  I also think the movie could have benefited from a somewhat edgier tone.  The tone of the film is kept fairly light, even when the stakes are being raised, while a darker approach may have helped the story stand out a little more.

This is a strangely lightweight movie all around.  It raises some interesting questions about corruption, relationships and people, but never really provides any answers.  It's a fun, if not diverting little film, and it has a lot of good times with its 1970s fashions and soundtrack choices.  But there's just not that something extra that I expect in a truly great film.  I found myself admiring the actors more than the movie they were in.  I'm recommending the movie, because it does have a lot to admire, and it is generally very well made.  I just once again find myself walking out of a David O. Russell film wondering what the huge deal is.  I'm still hoping to one day join in the chorus of raves his films tend to get on a regular basis.  But for now, I'm going to have to say that there's a lot to like about American Hustle, but it falls short of greatness.

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