Only the director here is David O. Russell who more than any other contemporary American filmmaker has reinvigorated screwball comedy partly by insisting that men and women talk to one another. To that end that chatter written by Mr. Russell and Eric Warren Singer is fast dirty intemperate hilarious and largely in service to the art of the con specifically the Abscam scandal that almost incidentally inspired the story. The real scandal dates back to 1978 and an F.B.I. investigation into political corruption that found agents posing as wealthy sheikhs anxious to buy off public officials. (Abscam was short for Arab scam or the nominally less derogatory Abdul scam.) The swindle netted a trove of greasy palmed politicians but also charges of entrapment.
The movie tracks the scandal primarily from the points of view of Irving and Sydney whose he said she said voice overs are interspersed with adenoidal dispatches from his stay at home wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence). After setting the contemporary scene Mr. Russell cuts back to Irving s childhood sketching in the con man s background with brief funny scenes and a devil may care take on criminality that pointedly mirrors the trajectory of Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese s GoodFellas. Like Paul Thomas Anderson whose period bacchanal Boogie Nights also borrows from GoodFellas Mr. Russell is a cinematic Son of Scorsese. Yet while his swooping cameras and motor mouth characters follow in the virtuosic wake of Mr. Scorsese they re equally beholden to Mr. Scorsese s own influences including the Golden Hollywood likes of the director Raoul Walsh.
Mr. Scorsese once called Walsh s 1939 post World War I crime film The Roaring Twenties a twisted Horatio Alger story a thumbnail description that also fits American Hustle. Corrupt politicos and a federal Venus flytrap give the movie a veneer of topicality and there s plenty in it that matches up with the historical record including the role played by Irving s true crime counterpart a Bronx born swindler named Mel Weinberg. Even so Mr. Russell doesn t seem all that interested in veracity and the movie opens with a playful assurance that some of this actually happened a declaration that feels calculated to block off point objections that some of it didn t happen. Details have been changed and everyone as is often the case in movies looks younger and prettier less lumpy and beaten down by life than the original players even Irving and his magnificently tragic trumped up hair.
The attention that Irving bestows on his mop the movie opens with him whipping it up into a spritzed froth is emblematic of a life lived as a masquerade. There was something about him Sydney says in voice over he had this confidence that drew me to him. A classic type as essential to the American Dream as Horatio Alger if one who s ditched honor in favor of hustling Irving doesn t pull himself up by his own bootstraps instead he steals the boots off some stooge and then sells them back to their original owner at twice the price. He dwells in that shady space between faith and doubt between our divinely given legally sanctioned national confidence ( In God We Trust ) and the deep routinely vindicated recognition that it s all a con. (Never give a sucker an even break.)
Once Irving s and Sydney s back stories are set in place the movie is off and running. The two join forces personally and professionally after meeting at a party where Irving resplendent in swimming trunks gold chains nestling in a thatch of chest fur and a stomach that suggests he s far into his third trimester works his magic. Mutually smitten they begin swindling desperate people who unable to secure legitimate bank loans hand over wads of cash in hopes of receiving bigger advances. One mark turns out to be an F.B.I. agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper very good) who uses them to run a bigger con one he hopes will bag politicians like a New Jersey mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner excellent) whose decency is tested by his ambitions.
Mr. Bale has long been a great actor if not an especially likable screen presence in this he s the opposite of Ms. Adams and Ms. Lawrence who are both talented and appealing and he s leaned toward cool even cold characters mask or no mask. It s a pleasure to see him warm up soften up not only because he looks as if he were having a good time but also because he s extraordinary here. In the past his performances have occasionally felt like a begrudgingly presented gift to the audience as he offered us his technique while keeping the more recognizably human part of himself out of reach. Maybe Mr. Russell who directed Mr. Bale in The Fighter wore him down.
Or perhaps Mr. Bale found pathos in Irving and dignity in this small striving vulgar man s life. Whatever the reasons Mr. Bale like some other stars who embrace playing ugly feels as if he d been liberated by all the pounds he s packed on and by his character s molting looks an emancipation that s most evident in his delicately intimate moving moments with Ms. Adams and Ms. Lawrence. Hilarious and brassy by turns reminiscent of Jean Harlow and Judy Holliday Ms. Lawrence is a bountiful delight even in a smallish role partly because of her magnetism and partly because Mr. Russell is one of the few American male directors working today who s as interested in women as he is in men. This may be about a famous federal sting but like all of his movies it s also a love story (or two).
As Irving s other better half Ms. Adams a virtuoso of perkiness goes deeper here than she s ever been allowed to. She showed an indelibly darker more dangerous side in a supporting role in Mr. Anderson s Master playing Lady Macbeth to a cult leader she has a lot more to do in American Hustle. Like Irving Sydney is a self invention one containing multitudes from the former stripper she starts off as to the elegant British noblewoman she pretends to be for the couple s loan scams. With her bright eyes and alabaster gleam Ms. Adams can look like a porcelain doll a deceptive mien that helps complicate Sydney and turns an unpredictable character into a thrillingly wild one whose ordinary scream is the howl of a wolf.
American Hustle giddily embraces the excesses of its era from spandex to staches though it s a farce that speaks as well to this tarnished age. Some of its extravagances are purely decorative and the costume and production designers along with the hairstylist must have had a blast. But all the shiny surfaces the glitter ball and the gaudiness also suggest a world in which everyone is anxious to shake off the post Vietnam War post Watergate funk. The ghost of Richard M. Nixon hovers in the air everyone is a fake and everyone wears a mask even Richie the F.B.I. agent with the Chia Pet perm. And then there s Irving and Sydney. We ve got to get over on all these guys she tells him when the scam seems to be going south. They may have to do the hustle but they ll be doing it together.
American Hustle is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Corrupt politicians.
American Hustle
Opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles.
Directed by David O. Russell written by Eric Warren Singer and Mr. Russell director of photography Linus Sandgren edited by Jay Cassidy Crispin Struthers and Alan Baumgarten music by Danny Elfman production design by Judy Becker costumes by Michael Wilkinson produced by Charles Roven Richard Suckle Megan Ellison and Jonathan Gordon released by Columbia Pictures. Running time 2 hours 9 minutes.
WITH Christian Bale (Irving Rosenfeld) Bradley Cooper (Richie DiMaso) Jeremy Renner (Mayor Carmine Polito) Amy Adams (Sydney Prosser) Jennifer Lawrence (Rosalyn Rosenfeld) Louis C. K. (Stoddard Thorsen) Jack Huston (Pete Musane) Michael Pe a (Paco Hernandez/Sheik Abdullah) Shea Whigham (Carl Elway) Alessandro Nivola (Anthony Amado) Elisabeth Rohm (Dolly Polito) and Paul Herman (Alfonse Simone).
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