DVD Review - American Hustle (2014)

For the first time in a while, I actually watched the Oscars this year and had seen a good portion of the nominees. After it was all over, I was struck by how emotionally invested I got. However, I wasn’t happy that 12 Years a Slave got some major cred, I wasn’t smiling about Gravity‘s successes either. Nope, I was revelling in how pleased I was that American Hustle walked away empty handed. This is a rare occurrence for me. I’m not this sort of person, but Hustle brought it out of me. Why? Allow me to explain after the standard plot summary.

1978. We are introduced to con man Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) who makes his money by duping suckers into paying him to secure loans that don’t exist. He meets Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) and the pair start a relationship and start scamming people together. Two kinds of trouble are on the horizon. Firstly, Rosenfeld’s unpredictable estranged wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) threatens to complicate everything and secondly, Rosenfeld and Prosser have just been caught by FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) and forced to work for the bureau in order to take down some bigger, slimier fish. The plot is a fast and loose adaptation of the FBI’s ABSCAM investigation into public corruption in the late 1970’s. The film opens with the message “Some of this actually happened”, but take that with the same trough of salt you do when a horror film claims to be based on “true events”. This isn’t like Argo, which strives to express the sheer surreal nature of historical events, it’s more interested in using it as a loose framework for thespians to do their thespian-ing.

I will say this, the acting is top notch stuff. Nobody puts in a duff performance. Christian Bale is great, giving us a strangely complicated character in the form of Irving, a man who is definitely a scumbag, but a vulnerable one. Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence are constantly battling to see who can walk away with the film tucked under one arm and it’s brilliant to watch. Bradley Cooper repurposes his megawatt smile to mean something a lot creepier and it totally works. Jeremy Renner also works well as the beloved Mayor Carmine Polito. Also Louis C. K. is awesome. Enough said there.

Here’s the thing. The good acting is both the film’s biggest strength and one of its crucial weaknesses. I genuinely felt like it was an actors’ workshop, bouncing (admittedly impressive) semi-improvised monologues and emotions off each other with little to no regard for the actual audience watching. I didn’t care about the characters at all. I wasn’t sucked into the story. All it was was good acting and ’70s kitsch. I felt the film was holding me at arms’ length until it had done its thing, then charged me for the privilege of having watched “proper” drama. I get what it is trying to do. You have these broad-as-hell, nigh-on cartoonish characters and you give them to talented actors and get them to turn the 2D roles into living, breathing people. That’s fine and all, but I didn’t sign up for that. I signed up for a fun, but well-told story taking several cues from real life.

American Hustle would like to pass itself off as smarter than your average bear, but there’s no real point to anything. There’s no lesson to take away from it, despite it feeling that there should be. I genuinely can’t believe the director of Three Kings could have directed something with so little to actually say. I don’t hate the film by any stretch, although perhaps my rather mean opening paragraph suggests otherwise. I’m glad it didn’t win anything because this is exactly the sort of shit that the Academy usually falls over itself to lay gold down at its feet. It’s an ensemble piece featuring great actors, directed by a board favourite director. I’m glad they’ve moved on from that sort of pandering guff. To me, American Hustle is nothing but a showcase for damn fine actors to do what they’re known for, with no aspirations to tell a coherent or entertaining story outside of that.

[rating=2]

Ben Browne

Genre:
Crime, drama
Distributor:
EDF
DVD Release Date:
28th April 2014 (UK)
Rating: 15
Director:
David O. Russell
Cast:
Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence
Buy:American Hustle [DVD] [2013]