OneAnjel

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.

I watched 127 hours for probably the third time. I remember when the film first came out and there was all this interest in the story. It was really very mind-blowing. We're all fascinated by the idea of being lost somewhere and not being able to get out of a predicament. But then to have this one thing that you can do to save yourself and it's something that animals do when they get into a trap - they chew off their limb. It's just incredulous to the everyday mind.

Yet even some of the most harrowing wilderness stories might be somewhat boring just to listen to for a solid hour and a half. But Danny Boyle decided he was going to give it a try. Any great director secretly wants to do that movie with one or 2 people in one setting - it's extremely hard to pull off but there are those who have done it, like Castaway, Bug, All is lost, Open Water, Scenic Route, and Buried. Boyle really pull this off along with his star James Franco. I noticed that the actor seems to be getting all of the credit in the majority of reviews and comments on YouTube but we have to give credit to the director who's finesse or lack of it can make or break a film.

If you're like me and you've taken a gander at where he is now, you might have seen some footage on what really happened and some notes on what actually didn't go that way in the film. But the film itself was very well done. They encompassed so much scenery even though most of the film does not take place outside of this one dark crevass. They insert some interesting footage starting with his thoughts on things he should have done or what he didn't do and who might find him there, and moving on to remembering his family and wondering if he's going to live through this, and then some hallucinations from dehydration and starvation and probably hypothermia.

Of course there was some dramatic license taken but I don't really care. For instance I read that he didn't really take those girls swimming in a beautiful blue pool but they did ask him to a party later.

I often am very entertained by reading reviews others have left. I especially like the ones that resist rehashing the synopsis of the film before actually getting to their opinion.