Why is American Hustle so gloriously entertaining? It’s certainly successful as a con man movie, as a 70s period piece and as a fast-paced (sometimes almost screwball) comedy. But I think the key is that writer-director David O. Russell develops such compelling characters – lots of them – and they’re so endearingly wacky, we just need to see what happens next. That’s the recipe he used in last year’s triumph Silver Linings Playbook (and in his under-appreciated 1996 Flirting with Disaster).
American Hustle opens with the wonderfully sly disclaimer “Some of this actually happened”, and then we see Christian Bale assembling the worst comb-over in cinematic history – and we’re hooked. The story follows the arc of the real-life Abscam scandal with the FBI forcing con artists to sting elected officials in an outlandish bribery-by-phony-sheik scheme. Bale plays an unattractive yet magnetic con man. Amy Adams is his tough and sexy partner. Bradley Cooper is their hyper-ambitious FBI handler.
As we would expect, Bale, Adams and Cooper are all fun to watch with this material. But Russell ‘s cast is very deep – the secondary and tertiary characters are just as fun. Jennifer Lawrence is a force of nature as Bale’s estranged wife, who takes passive aggressiveness to an entirely unforeseen level. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) almost steals the picture as an extremely sympathetic and good-hearted local pol who doesn’t see what’s coming. And Louis C.K. is hilarious as Cooper’s put-upon boss; as he did so successfully in Blue Jasmine, C.K. plays the character completely straight and lets the material generate the laughs; many comedians make the mistake of trying to act funny in movie comedies, but C.K. has a real gift for the lethal dead pan.
American Hustle plants us firmly in the late 1970s with an especially evocative score and very fun costumes and hair. Besides Bale’s comb-over, we enjoy the tightly permed curls of Adams and Cooper, along with Lawrence’s Jersey updo. And Adams and Lawrence sport an unceasing series of dresses with severely plunging necklines.
Funny and gripping at the same time, with scads of movie stars at their very best, American Hustle is a surefire good time at the movies. American Hustle is now available on DVD frpm Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
