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While "American Hustle" has some nice performances, I was very surprised how unexcited I was watching this film. After all, around Oscar time, this was THE film that all the hype seemed to be about and the movie hadn't even debuted yet!! Critics were abuzz and the film got all the major nominations--Best Picture, Best Director, all the acting awards and four other nominations! If I were to create a list of most overrated films of all time, I would include this one simply because of all this hype. No film could be as good as this hype would indicate...and it wasn't.

The movie is a HIGHLY fictionalized retelling of the Abscam affair where the FBI caught a lot of politicians on tape taking bribes. The ending, in particular, is pure Hollywood, not fact. But, instead of focusing mostly on the scam, the film tends to glamorize the characters involved in putting over this sting--the confidence people as well as the FBI.

So why was I so underwhelmed by the film? The biggest reason is that I didn't like any of the people. And, oddly, the one I liked the most was the mayor (Jeremy Renner) caught up in the scandal. Any film about Abscam, even one as fictional as this one, needs to show bad people-- this didn't bother me. But the film so glamorized them and was all about them--and this left me flat.

A few other things bothered me a bit. First, the f-word was not THAT commonly used in the 70s like it is used today. Historically, this is inaccurate, as it was used something like 27102391294 times. Second, while I liked the period music (as well as some new music by Jeff Lynne that sounded period), it was often too invasive--like a music video.

In closing, I think if the film had never been hyped, I might have enjoyed it a lot more and scored it higher.

Frankly, the movie itself does not live up to its hype. I never was fully engaged with any character even though it takes more than enough time and delivers a tedious and often painstaking pace. Honestly, it felt to me like the film dragged and that the ending would never arrive. Even though not fully engaged and not empathetic towards any character depicted, there is enough style that I somehow cared about how the story ended. Every scene seemed to me like an exercise in an acting class. It feels like a professor took a group of talented actors and gave them this over-the-top 1970's assignment. Everyone gets an "A" because they are that good but it barely felt like a coherent film to me. It's like their assignment included constant references to try and deliver a "Goodfellas" type tone without having a script to back it up. The events of the conclusion were so easy to spot that I'm sure most everyone will see it coming a mile away.

Overall, interesting but there is far less substance than I was expecting. I have to say this was a let down.

It did not take an astronomical amount of time during my screening of American Hustle to realize I had found the best film of the 2013. American Hustle was not what I expected, but in the best way possible. Acting as almost a descendant of Goodfellas, it does not rip off the story or characters, but traces of Martin Scorsese's masterpiece can be found in the style and spirit of David O'Russell's now masterpiece. O'Russell keeps his controlled hand over the wild characters and fast-paced plot; for the crime movie it is, class seems high on the list of "musts."

The commenters of the screenplay have noted how much of a blast the screenplay is; a blast it is, but most are ignoring the intricacy of the screenplay by David O'Russell and Eric Singer. The groundwork is the twisty fraud story, which is snappy, entertaining, and full of surprises. The next layer is the character work of the five leading roles, the screenplay inflames all the characters to reveal their unique cores. The third layer details those characters each with their own object of symbolism including a comb over, a British accent, hair curlers, nail polish, and a science oven. Layer four is the screwball comedy dialogue exchanges between the characters, which drives comedic artistry out of the actors leaving the audience cheerfully laughing.

The most puzzling compliant about American Hustle many are holding against the film is a lack of deeper meaning. It confuses me because the deeper meaning is quite clear and abundantly there, Amy Adams and Christian Bale even have key moments of literally speaking it to the other characters. It's a story of identities, being unhappy with who you are and the different versions of ourselves we put on display as we encounter different people. We have numerous roles we must play in order to survive, whether it be for respect, love, self-worth, or community. We all do it.

David O'Russell's sight of his screenplay dares him to capture his film in a particular fashion. The camera acts as a silent third party in scenes of where, if the audience were a character in the movie, our eyes would be during the conversations such as focusing on hand gestures, zooming in to characters as they speak, and the length from the characters to the camera in his editing. Where our focus would be in person is where O'Russell places us in his vision where and when he wants us to see what.

The acting ensemble of American Hustle has been called the star of the show, collectively the five leading actors support each other through the two hours and fifteen minutes. Some have found it troubling to select one of the five as the most valuable player because all five do their homework and put the effort in. I anticipated the cast from the trailers and released clips, but I never found myself too terribly excited to see Christian Bale's work, yet he surprised me with how complete his characterization was of Irving Rosenfled. This is a trite way of describing an accomplished acting performance, but Bale warrants it here: I forgot I was watching Christian Bale, the actor, entirely.

Bradley Cooper has made a career by unleashing the inner-asshole in himself; in American Hustle he's the ultimate shade of that character type with an added vibrancy and an immaturity of not feeling respected. Jennifer Lawrence oozes in her supporting role filling the juvenile Rosalyn with hilarity and loneliness. Someone who saw American Hustle with me commented on how unlikeable Lawrence's character is and in lesser hands it may have been more predominant, but Lawrence charms her way through her character's flaws and makes us empathize with her entirely. Jeremy Renner delivers great work as well, but with fewer money moments and less "umph" than his co-stars.

The general consensus may have trouble finding an MVP of the cast, but it was no problem for me. Though I admired everything Bale, Cooper, Lawrence, and Renner added to American Hustle, it's an understatement to say the film belongs to Amy Adams. She's proved herself to be a great talent, but Adams delivers her most accomplished work here. In the Hollywood Reporter's Actress Roundtable earlier this winter, Adams commented how miserable she was during the filming of American Hustle because she was so consumed by her character's identity, or lack-there-of. I've never seen a performance like Adams or a character like Sydney. Adams slips in and out of Sydney's faux British accent as she keeps her cards hidden from all the other characters. We never knows who her loyalties belong to. Tears swell in Adams eyes as she pathologically tells the story of her character, without divulging enough information to be completely vulnerable. It's a sensational performance.

"The world isn't black and white as you say, it's extremely grey," a line Christian Bale imparts to Bradley Cooper, another existential message that is driven by the screenplay. O'Russell exhibits his two main characters, con artists, and asks us to like them enough to follow them for rest of the story. By the end, we have not only accepted them, but love and root for them.

At the heart of American Hustle is a love story between Irving and Sydney, an aspect that I found to be most successful. Adams is at her most gorgeous ever, Bale is balding and fifty pounds over. Their love is not formed around physical attraction, something magical happens in the first twenty minutes and we see and feel the way they fall in love. This supports the film's stance on appearances meaning nothing. With maybe the exception of Blue is the Warmest Color, try to find two 2013 film characters more in love than Irving and Sydney.

American Hustle is all about large characters, outlandish fashion and awful hair. It may tease you into thinking it's some kind of smart con- artist movie with it's (very loosely) based-on-real-events premise ("some of this actually happened", the opening credits inform us) and snappy trailer. But for all visual pizazz, this is in fact a very small movie, focusing on a small set of unique and frequently bizarre characters that just happen to cross paths amidst the ABSCAM operation in the late 70's and early 80's. Imagine if the characters from I Heart Huckabees (2004) were in fact the people who took part in the operation covered in Argo (2012), and you'll have something akin to American Hustle.

Paunchy con-artist and loan-shark Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) hooks up with the beautiful Sydney (Amy Adams), an intelligent and ambitious American girl who improves Irving's scams by pretending to be an English aristocrat. When they are busted by creepy FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), they are promised leniency if they assist the Bureau in making four additional arrests. The plan is to entrap popular Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), who is looking to inject funds into gambling in Atlantic City, by having a friend pose as an Arab sheik looking for potential investments in America. As Irving, Richie and Sydney delve further into the sting, things start to spiral wildly out of control, as Irving's loud-mouth wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) can't seem to keep her mouth shut, and Richie develops feelings for Sydney.

As said before, the plot plays second-fiddle to director David O. Russell's obvious fascination with this ensemble of weirdo's. Surprisingly, it's the slimy swindler at the centre of it all, Irving, that comes out of it the most recognisably human. In the opening scene, we see a shockingly bloated Bale, slapping his awful toupee across his head to cover up an embarrassing hairline. Is this the American Dream at work, a petty criminal posing as a sophisticated, honest guy? Well, no, American Hustle doesn't need to try and touch those metaphorical heights, but this is the type of person we're to spend the next two-plus hours with. An apparently successful sort of guy, covered in gold and eyes covered by tinted sunglasses, but hiding something fragile or dangerous that may soon reveal itself.

The performances are spectacular, as one would expect. Bale manages to make you actually root for his slimeball character, and Jennifer Lawrence shows that she seems able to tackle any role or character with aplomb. Cooper does a job similar to his previous work with Russell, Silver Linings Playbook (2012), but even betters that. He seems to have the uncanny ability to make you instantly know there's just something wrong with his character, and when we see him at dinner with the fiancée he clearly doesn't love or respect, his hair bunched up in tiny little rollers, there's something simply tragic about him. And Amy Adams, let loose here to reveal an unseen feistiness, wins the award for Side-Boob of the Year.

The whole thing is a rather strange experience, never really falling into a recognisable genre or taking a conventional approach to storytelling. It could only really come from the mind of David O. Russell, the only director that seems able to combine a mixture of mainstream commercial success, nominations and awards a-plenty, and independent sensibilities, never really moving away from his own vision. It's not a total success of course - Irving's admiration from the 'moral' Mayor Polito, who just wants to rejuvenate Atlantic City, seems a bit of a sympathy quick-fix, and no-one can out-Scorsese Martin Scorsese. Well, maybe Paul Thomas Anderson can. But American Hustle is a big dose of strangely endearing entertainment, that even when it outstays it's welcome towards the end still made me want to spend more time with the characters.

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I'd heard mixed responses about this film over the years so I had to finally give it a watch. And I'm sorry to anyone that hates this film, but I really enjoyed this one!

The first half an hour or so is quite bland I'll be honest. No obvious direction for the film to go in, I wasn't too sold on any of the characters and just generally the pace was really slow.

But the film massively picks up and it just gets better and better and more interesting with every minute that passes. The ending I thought was fantastic, it ended all the characters arc's amazingly well and had a brilliant twist involved which I didn't see coming.

The standout for me is the acting. When I saw the pretty extravagant cast lineup I was skeptical. Usually films that go all in with cast typically don't do too well. So when I saw Bale, Adams, DeNiro, Renner, Lawrence, Cooper and CK and more I was thinking just that. But this doesn't fall into that category at all! Acting from everyone was superb and a real standout, really added so much more to the characters. Just a great job overall.

But yeah, overall it's a fun, interesting watch with a little touch of subtle humour added which is always nice. 8/10 from me, would recommend.