Queens

After seeing some of the big praise the film has had including talks of Oscar nominations for Lopez I expected a lot lot more from the film. It was still ok but reasonably good rather than anything exceptional with multiple flaws.

Lorene Scafaria absolutely kills it. Hustlers is a well written, tremendously directed film. The co-leads in Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians) and Jennifer Lopez (Jenny from the block...) act their asses off. For a $20 million production this film looks huge and glossy. It's everything you want your trip to the movies to be. Worth the price of admission and engaging enough to justify the large coke and popcorn.

I felt like for a portion of the film that some characters were forgotten about. They felt key to the character's motivations but went missing. These threads were picked up again however and it resolved my biggest gripe. The cast is quite large especially during the films first act. More and more cast members are added as the film progresses and the initial ensemble is made redundant by the plot. The girls were so charming at the start that I wish they'd found their way back into the story. This isn't a criticism so much as a wish for more of a good thing.

My experience seeing this movie was my main takeaway. I'm a self-professed film geek. Often when I head to the pictures I'm flying solo because my One Sixty cohort Shane is busy or finding like minded film fans is hard to come by where live. It's not uncommon to see a few other guys watching the film by themselves as well. What I saw during Hustlers was sort of unprecedented out in the 'burbs where I live (at least in my experience). I saw many women, by themselves, in the cinema seeking this film. Young and old alike.

It's no great mystery that movies are made, at least marketed, with men/boys in mind. Great inroads have been made in changing the opinion that they are solely for men and Hustlers seems like a huge leap forward in defeating this stigma. Whilst I was watching the movie the sense that this movie wasn't trying to appeal to my more basic man-brain became increasingly apparent. The movie wasn't exploitive of its female cast. It told the story as it was, it didn't fantasise.

I felt refreshed seeing a movie that I wasn't the target audience for. Seeing a movie that could easily have fallen into the trappings of becoming a male fantasy movie. Instead it was a female story. Told as it was. I am absolutely here for more mature movies that aren't just about the white male experience. As his history shows in order for anything to survive becoming stagnated it need diversity. We need more stories from more people. We need more stories from Lorene Scafaria.

A film about greed, told with grace:

4/5 Stars

J-Lo was amazing in this role, as was Constance Wu, but novice writer and director Lorene Scafaria did an ok job directing, but the screenplay was garbage, with many plot and technical issues, especially towards the end. The pacing was too slow for the story, and the 110 min run-time felt like 3 hours. And the abrupt scene cuts by editor Kayla Emter... a kindergartener with plastic scissors could've done a better job. Aside from this being based on real events and (surprisingly also cast) Cardi B's acknowledgement she's done this, I do agree that this "girl power" garbage has got out of hand. I wasn't impressed with all the gal's playing victims and none of the men they robbed weren't. Clearly a one sided opinion coming from an entirely all-female production. That alone lost points from me. This film is not even close to the fake 10's - it's barely at best a 7/10, but also not worthy of all the 1's and 2's (production value alone is at least a 4). It's an honest 6/10 from me, most points for the leads performances.

It really feels like many of the negative reviews expected a female version of Magic Mike or something like that. I feel like many of them missed the point.

This is a story about a crime ring formed by strippers who have had it with the Wall Street bros who come in and take advantage of them. It's about how for many women, stripping is a form power they can hold over the men who have controlled many aspects of their lives. It's also about taking desperate measures when there are no better alternatives.

I enjoyed this movie, and thought the cast did a great job.

"Hustlers" (2019 release; 110 min.) is "Inspired By a True Story", we are reminded at the beginning. As the movie opens, it is "2007" and an Asian-American girl named Dorothy is getting ready for work at a strip club. Then a Latina woman named Ramona makes her grand entrance and does a spectacular pole dance as Fiona Apple's "Criminal" blasts from the speakers. Duly impressed, Dorothy reaches out to Ramona for some dancing tips, and the two hit it off. We then go to "2014" where we see Dorothy being interviewed by a journalist... At this point we are 10 min. into the movie, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from writer-director Lorene Scafaria, whose "Seeking a Friend For the End of the World" some years ago was one of my favorite movies of that year. Here she takes a New York magazine article and turns it into a wild, wild movie. Beware: not much is left to the imagination. The grand entrance of Jennifer Lopez in that opening scene's pole dance is nothing short of stunning. In fact, the same can be said about Lopez's overall performance, which should be Oscar nomination-worthy, and certainly is a career-best performance. Lopez turned 50 this year, and looks about 35. She takes control of the movie, and requests, makes that demands, your attention. You are more than happy to give it to her. Constance Wu, Keke Palmer, and Lili Reinhardt round out the primary performers. Check out Cardi B and Lizzo (part of the strip gang). When a movie's principal set is a strip club, you can expect a lot of fist-pumping music, and the movie more than delivers on that level. In addition to the aforementioned Fiona, there are songs from Britney Spears, Janet Jackson ("Control", of course), Fat Joe, Queen She, 50 Cent, and many, many more.

"Hustlers" premiered a few weeks ago at the Toronto International Film Festival to immediate acclaim, and was released wide last weekend (outperforming expectations at the box office). The Saturday matinee screening where I saw this at here in Cincinnati in its second weekend of release was attended very nicely (a good 30 people in a small room). If you have an interest in seeing a gritty yet funny stripper drama starring an Oscar nomination-worthy Jennifer Lopez, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater, on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.