American Hustle (2013)

A hustle is a confidence trick. An audience can feel confident that they are being tricked. Magicians use smoke and mirrors but a hustler has to give you the confidence that although you are being conned, you can still enjoy the process of believing that you are getting something for nothing. Some hustlers could sell sand to the Arabs but in this movie the Arabs are selling the sand.

After two hours of watching American Hustle I had to discuss what I had witnessed with a companion to assure myself that I had understood what I had I seen. Which makes the film more clever than it was an outstanding piece.

I’ll try to explain. A seasoned and professional hustler teams up with a pole dancer to enter into a bond raising scam which works for them until they are caught out by an FBI investigator. He strikes a deal with the pair which will let them off if they can finger three corrupt local and national politicians for fraud. The pair devise a plan which will involve a colleague disguised as an Arab who is prepared to fund a money laundering casino in Atlantic City for the Mafia but it will require $2 million of FBI money to set the scam up. They succeed in this via a wild and funny route involving the hustler’s wife and the seduction of the FBI investigator by the pole dancer. The denouement is the arrest of the three politicians and the disappearance of the $2 million by the hustling couple.

So, how did a story that could have been effectively aired on the British TV series, Hustle, become a multi Oscar nominated film which has a Hollywood A list in its casting ? Well that could be the clue. It would have been reduced to a TV series had it not got the A list. Bradley Cooper does excel as the FBI investigator in a really OTT performance of a man carried away by his own confidence. Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams are superb and carry the film. Christian Bale commands attention in an eccentric way that reflects the ra of the story, namely the 1970’s. This is reflected in the careful detail of the sets and and good selection of music.

There is a brilliant cameo from Robert de Niro as a scary Mafia boss who did not play the part for laughs. The rest of the film is fast, furious and funny in parts and enfuriatingly confusing in others. You have to keep up or you will get lost – or hustled.