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nTitle: American Hustle (2013)
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nDirector: David O. Russell
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nCast: Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner,nBradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Robert DeNiro
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nIt seems that greed is America’s new favorite theme; in thentail end of 2013 three films have been released dealing with this theme. Inguess Hollywood has it in their minds that bad economy will make people desperatenenough to plan scams and get rich quick schemes, so Hollywood has taken it uponnthemselves to play the role of our collective conscience, reminding thosendesperate individuals out there the results of letting greed control our lives.nThe three movies I’m talking about are The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), ThenCounselor (2013) and now American Hustle (2013). All three of these moviesndepict desperate people making sneaky deals, conning people, stealing, doingnall sorts of illegal things in order to get the proverbial cash. What makesnAmerican Hustle different from the other two films is that it takes place innthe flashy 70’s.
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nLike The Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle is also basednon real life events; hence the movie starting out with a title card that readsn“some of these things actually happened”; which at the same time lets us know that the story is notnentirely true and that artistic liberties were taken with the story. Butnbasically, this is the story of a con artist who ends up working with the fedsnin order to capture a bunch of corrupt politicians. That’s the jist of it, thenplot isn’t all that complex; what moves the story are the complications thatnarise, and the crazy characters that inhabit the film, this is one of thosenfilms in which the over the top performances take center stage.
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nFirst off we have Christian Bale playing Irving Rosenfeld,nthe master con artist. Now, you’ve probably heard the stories about how innprevious films, Christian Bale has transformed his physique in order to playncharacters that (for whatever the reason) look extremely skinny or sick,nmalnourished if you will. For example, for The Machinist (2004) Bale became anwalking skeleton in order to play a sleep deprived factory worker, how he looksnin that film is truly shocking. For Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn (2006) he lostnweight yet again for a scene which required him to look like a food deprivednprisoner of war; and in David O Russell’s The Fighter (2010) again he lost anlot of weight in order to play a junkie. The thing with his character innAmerican Hustle is that it’s a complete turnaround of what he’d done in thosenfilms, on American Hustle he actually gained 40 pounds in order to look likenthis dude who simply doesn’t care about appearances. You should see the beernbelly on this guy! It’s kind of hard to believe he is the same guy who playednBatman a couple of years ago. DeNiro himself didn’t recognize Bale when theynmet on set! They had to be re-introduced! So anyways, Bale plays a characternthat’s so sure of himself that he doesn’t care what you think of him, younsimply have to accept him that way. So anyhow, Bale’s transformation for thisnfilm is astounding yet again. Gotta give it to Bale, he is committed to hisnroles.
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nThen we have Jennifer Lawrence whose career is literally onnfire. Here she comes hot off her Oscar win for Silver Lining Playbook (2012) and herncommercial success with The Hunger Games movies and delivers the mostnentertaining of all the characters in American Hustle, on this film she isnquite literally a show stealer! She plays Rosalyn Rosenfeld, wife to ChristiannBale’s con artist; basically she’s this trashy New Jersey housewife who chainnsmokes and dances to The Beatles “Live and Let Die” as she does her housencleaning. Her New Jersey accent is thick, and she’s loud and in your face,nloved her performance. She’s already won a Golden Globe for it, who knows;nmaybe she’ll get another Oscar? Then there’s Bradley Cooper playing this crazedncop hot on the tail of the dirty politicians, his sole purpose is to make anname for himself, he looks hilarious with those curls. Actually, everybody herenlooks hilarious; in fact, it feels as if every actor’s sole job was to makenthemselves look as imperfect and eccentric as possible. Bale looks like a slob,nCooper looks funny with the curls, Lawrence looks trashy and Amy Adams…well,nshe’s just over the top sexy on this movie, showing so much cleavage it’s notneven funny, but of course that’s not all there is to her character. I have tonadmit, Amy Adams is growing on me as an actress, here she plays a focused, icyncold lady. So expect all actors to have these crazy over the top looks, theynfeel almost like parodies of 70’s style and fashion. But I guess that was thenidea with this movie, to go as over the top as possible.
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nThis film reunites director David O Russell with JennifernLawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro, all of whom worked together on Russell’snSilver Linings Playbook (2012); it really is a joy to watch all these talentednactors together on the screen, at least on the acting department you know you’rennot gonna get short changed. Speaking of DeNiro playing a gangster, I couldn’tnhelp and think of Martin Scorsese while watching this movie; it feels like anhomage to Scorsese movies. It has Deniro, gangsters and desperate hustlers, Incouldn’t help myself. Still, when compared with The Wolf of Wall Street and ThenCounselor, I’d say that The Wolf of Wall Street comes out on top, simplynbecause it’s the fastest paced and bat shit insane of the three. AmericannHustle, in comparison seems tame; this is not to say it isn’t a good film or a funnynone, it’s just slower than Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street which to me felt likena movie high on all the cocaine it portrays. Still, American Hustle has annamazing cast, entertaining characters and the whole 70’s vibe going for it,nwhich still makes it a worthwhile ride. David O. Russell, the director of thisnfilm has said that the emphasis on his films is not plot, but characters andnthere’s no better example than American Hustle. I have to admit it wasn’t asnmemorable as I was expecting, but the cast and performances elevate the filmnand makes it entertaining enough to make it one of the best of the year.
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nRating: 4 out of 5
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