The Focus Pull Film Journal The Focus Pull Film Journal
The Focus Pull Film Journal The Focus Pull Film Journal
  • Full Issues 
  • Reviews 
  • Features 
  • OUR TEAM
  • Info.
    • OUR TEAM
  • Content
    • Full Issues 
      • Issue #01
      • Issue #02
      • Issue #03
      • Issue #04
      • Issue #05
      • Issue #06
      • Issue #07
      • Issue #08
      • Issue #09
      • Issue #10
      • Issue #11
      • Issue #12
      • Issue #13
      • Issue #14
      • Issue #15
      • Issue #16
      • Issue #17
      • Issue #18
      • Issue #19
      • Issue #20
      • Issue #21
      • Issue #22
      • Issue #23
      • Issue #24
      • Issue #25 - Horror Week
      • Issue #26
      • Issue #27
      • Issue #28
      • Issue #29
      • Issue #30
      • Issue #31
      • Issue #32
      • Issue #33
      • Issue #34
      • Issue #35
      • Issue #36
      • Issue #37
      • Issue #38
      • Issue #39
      • Issue #40
    • Reviews 
      • (All Reviews)
      • Action Adventure
      • Animation
      • Biography/History
      • Comedy
      • Crime
      • Documentary
      • Drama
      • Foreign
      • Horror
      • Romance
      • Sci-Fi
      • Thriller
    • Features 
      • (All Features)
      • Bonding with Bond
      • Double Exposures
      • Essays
      • Event Coverage
      • Lists
      • New to Netflix
      • News
      • Retrospectives
    • OUR TEAM
REGISTER
@
LOGIN
Reviews
3
1
previous article
The Best Films of 2013
next article
Review: The Great Beauty

Review: American Hustle

by Taylor Sinople on January 6, 2014
American Hustle
Overall Rating
6.0
6.0
Critic Rating
You have rated this

Straight from the 1970’s throwback studio logos for Columbia Pictures and Annapurna Pictures used at the head of the film, David O. Russell throws us into the bell-bottomed, shag-carpeted, leisure suited world of “American Hustle.”

The year is 1978 and con artists Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) are about to find themselves entangled in the infamous FBI sting operation ABSCAM. Irving and Sydney (his British partner and lover) took their lucrative phony-loan business too far when they unknowingly tried to scam FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). DiMaso offers them a way out – they work with the Feds to take down three major players in the New Jersey crime game and they’re free. At the top of the list is Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) – a politician with a determination to improve the city that knows no legal bounds. As DiMaso’s obsession with being the hero pushes the criminal/Fed trio deeper into the local crime syndicate, the line between “right” and “con” blurs in the midst of million dollar deals and meetings with the mafia.

Russell is a thoughtful enough director to see potential beyond creating another slick con action movie – instead, he gives us those satisfying criminal sequences while also finding time to really dig into how everyone engages in “emotional scams” to get what they want. Irving declares, “We’re all conning ourselves in one way or another just to get through life.” DiMaso becomes hellbent on the recognition and respect he stands to gain from taking down the Mayor. Sydney convinces herself she has to pretend to be someone she’s not in order to be happy. This is the biggest challenge of moral compass that any of these characters have ever faced – and they all nearly collapse because of it.

“American Hustle” is clearly larger in scope than any of David O. Russell’s previous films, and that’s a significant challenge considering the intimate, small-town scale is a big part of what was so great about his most recent films, “Silver Linings Playbook” and “The Fighter.” In “American Hustle,” the characters talk like they’re in a David O. Russell film, but the look and feel is pure Scorsese. This is both as good and as bad as it may sound. Russell is working with big genre, big music, and big stars and it all amounts to an extremely fun movie that sets loose its collection of eccentric and volatile characters for 2+ hours of entertainment. The performances (that include an overweight, balding version of Christian Bale and another iteration of Bradley Cooper in the throes of mania) are each hilarious, interesting, and unpredictable, but the story is what suffers.

“American Hustle” is stuffed with plot developments and we’re left with little chance to understand how they relate and work together before we head in an entirely different direction. It’s just sloppy storytelling. As a biographical account of ABSCAM, “American Hustle” doesn’t deliver – but it isn’t really about that anyways, the biographical context is just a place-setting to explore the comedy and style of the era. What we do get is a project with great writing and acting on a scene-to-scene basis, but with a lacking sense of cohesiveness.

We’re being pulled from both arms. For every good mark, there is a countering drawback. An exciting unbilled cameo is lost in a muddled plot. The quick-moving “re-cap” montage bringing us up to speed with the characters’ pasts is interrupted by a flashback that bizarrely lifts a gag directly from Chaplin’s 1921 comedy “The Kid.” Amy Adams is pitted against a collection of some of the best working American actors and stands her ground, only to again and again become the subject of exploitative shots fixated on her sex appeal.

In a lengthy dinner scene, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), Irving’s young wife, shares her infatuation with the smell of her nail polish. Sweet, but rotten, she describes it.

Release

U.S. Wide Release: December 20, 2013 | U.K. Wide Release: January 1, 2014

Runtime

2 hr. 18 min.

(All Reviews), Crime, Drama, Reviews
About the Author
Taylor Sinople
Taylor Sinople
Taylor is a Chicago-based writer and aspiring film historian. He is the editor here at TFP, and has contributed to a number of international publications such as Cinema Scandinavia, PopMatters, and Room 101 Magazine. He can also be found listening to podcasts, researching topics he has little use for, or running after a city bus.
comments
Leave a reply
Add Comment Register



Leave a Response
Cancel reply

The Focus Pull in your inbox!

Subscribe to this list, and we'll send you each week's new issue directly to your inbox. One email a week, packed with essential film writing!

Latest Reviews

View All
 
Taylor Sinople Picks: The 16 Best Films of 2016
 
Form and Function in Alex Ross Perry’s “Queen of Earth&...
 
Digging for Fire and Unexpected: Husband and Wife Process Parenthoo...
 
Every Thing Will Be Fine 3D Review

Latest Features

View All
 
Taylor Sinople Picks – The 17 Best Films of 2017
 
Taylor Sinople Picks: The 16 Best Films of 2016
 
Taylor Sinople’s Top 10 Films of 2015: “The Duke of Bur...
 
8 Films to See at the 51st Chicago International Film Festival

Our Partners

Advertisement

FESTIVAL COVERAGE

View All
 
8 Films to See at the 51st Chicago International Film Festival
 
Every Thing Will Be Fine 3D Review
 
Berlinale 2015: Eisenstein in Guanajuato
 
Berlinale 2015: Sworn Virgin
 
Berlinale 2015: Under Electric Clouds

LISTS

View All
 
Taylor Sinople Picks – The 17 Best Films of 2017
 
SNL40: A Look Back at 40 Years of SNL in Film
 
Six Must-See British Films Opening in 2015
 
Oscars 2015: Ranking the Best Picture Nominees
 
Our 26 Most Anticipated Films of 2015
Tweets by @thefocuspull
  • "Popcorn - check. Soda - check...I have a date with Netflix on Friday night." - Sherry
  • "[…] nails it.” I disagree, and frankly wonder what movies John is talking about. The original G..." - Dear Godzilla Fans: Please Stop Defending that ...
  • "[…] www.thefocuspull.com […]" - Annie Hall
  • "[…] more vibrant monologue or confrontation, like the dinner scene that comes at just the right time ..." - Taylor Sinople's Top 10 Films of 2015
  • "[…] of the year is also the stuff of a best picture winner. With Michael Keaton, hot off praise from ..." - Taylor Sinople's Top 10 Films of 2015
TRENDING ON TFP
   
Try a different filter
© 2014 THE FOCUS PULL FILM JOURNAL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.