OneAnjel

This is a bit of Father Pig meets the Ghost of Christmas past. Father Pig is almost impossible to research but its a 1970s novel about teens who go on a violent killing spree.

This film starts out very strong with intense violence but tones down the remaining violent scenes, for some reason, which are infrequent. It's hard to say what the writer was going for because while the characters are well-defined and believably acted, after the first shocking scene, we are presented with a focus on the mousey passenger and his life's failings, to a large degree. With 5 hours to get out of town and flee capture, the trigger man chooses to drive around town righting wrongs for his captive.

I thought it should have ended with the restaurant scene but the writer chose to add a strange happily ever after scenario.

Great acting, interesting story. If you like psychological thrillers, you might enjoy this more than someone just looking for gore and violence.

Before the explosion of streaming platforms, the only British shows we saw were on PBS which wasn't a really fair sampling. But there's a predominance of them free on prime now - since they're charging extra to members for everything else. I heard of this show from a review on Leverage. I disagree they took their idea from Hustle, especially since it's well-known that Leverage was based on a Charlie's Angels episode called 3 for the Money (1980). But I can see why someone might see alot if similarities - a team of grifters who con people out of their money for fun, greed, pleasure, and sometimes for the principal. But neither of these series introduced grifting to the audience. My earliest memories start with Paper Moon, then Dirty rotten scoundrels, the Sting, The grifters, Oceans 11... All were before Hustle and those are just the full-length movies. While some of those films did use teams, they didn't really present them as such because they had focus on the main stars. Leverage is one of my all time favorites so it might be unfair to review Hustle, with that in mind. But I will anyway.

Hustle is very clever and has a good cast. I especially enjoyed seeing Robert Vaughn who I remember from childhood as The Man from U. N. C. L. E. There's a lot of playfulness from looking into the camera, to stopping the scene to talk it through, to bursting into a musical. The characters are likeable and the cons are well-thought out and believable on a basic level. The wow factor is satisfying when the team gets through its con with plenty of unexpected surprises.

But compared to Leverage, which hit the airwaves only 4 years later, the style, technology, and audience-intelligence expectation seems much earlier. Maybe they were going for a 90s look and feel.

By comparison, Leverage has characters that are much more defined, lovable, and exceptional And they are not all grifters. In fact there's only one grifter (grifter, hacker, hitter, thief) They have a defined leader who initially brought them together for one con and then only continued because they kept finding people who had been wronged by the rich and powerful. However it is going for more of a humorous undertone and a moden Robin Hood theme. For the record, I can't recommend Redemption as highly although it's very entertaining.

Hustle is a solid 5 from me for entertainment value a bingability. It's very easy to follow but lacks a real personality. I know I can't anticipate about 20 thumbs down from all the Brits and one or two thumbs up from wandering Americans who happen upon my review. I'm okay with that.