The Story is Familiar, The Performances are Above Average, Ain't That American Hustle?

People being conned by people who are being conned. This is not the most original concept for a film and by the end of “American Hustle,” my opinion of this fact was unmoved. David O. Russell, who has made some very good, edgy films in the past (“Spanking the Monkey,” “Three Kings”) has assembled a fantastic cast, however the events portrayed in this Russell directed film are moderately interesting, at best. What stands out in “American Hustle” are some of the performances, especially those of Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper. Amy Adams, who can also be seen in and delivers the best performance in Spike Jonze’s, “Her,” is beautiful and sexy as hell as the partner in con-artistry to Irving Rosenfeld, played well by Christian Bale. Adams plays Sydney Prosser. Sydney meets Rosenfeld at a party sometime in the mid-1970’s. They bond after discovering mutual interests, namely Duke Ellington, and as they soon find out, conning people out of money. The notion of a film about con artists already had me losing interest in the story the film was presenting by the 20 minute mark. What held my interest in the film for the duration of the 138 minute running time were the performances and some late points of interest and a surprise (or at least a surprise to me) guest star who shows up about ¾ of the way into the film. I sat up in my seat at this point as the appearance of this person and the story gets kicked up a notch and maintains an amount of interest through the end of the film.

My main problem with “American Hustle” is that, and for comparison’s sake, I am going to compare it to last year’s “Argo,” “Hustle” is too long. Length does not usually bother me (I hear you chuckling) if the story in a given film holds my interest. I already knew that it was not the story presented in “American Hustle” that was holding my interest, but, rather it was the performances. “Argo” ran 105 minutes, 30 minutes shorter than “American Hustle,” and “Argo” felt much more compact, every scene in “Argo” felt important, unlike in “Hustle,” in which there are some scenes, especially in the first 30 minutes, that feel superfluous, and no, I don’t feel sick. It is not until the second half of the film that I felt any amount of adrenaline rush, and it wasn’t really even that much of a rush. I did appreciate the fact that, like “Argo” used the 1970’s era Warner Brothers logo at the beginning of that film, “American Hustle”uses the 1970’s era Columbia Pictures logo at the beginning of this film. “American Hustle” does get more interesting the more the story is fleshed out, the more the details are explained, however, because I am not given to seeking out movies involving con-artists, the mob, FBI guys, etc, this film did not resonate with me. It is a good, well-made film, however, I do not see myself wanting to see it again, other than to, perhaps get another look at Amy Adams with her sexy 70’s hair.

It is stated at the beginning of the film that, “Some of this actually happened,” specifically ABSCAM, the massive FBI anti-corruption operation conducted by the FBI in the late 1970’s. Here is a video from ABC News from February of 1980 that explains all about ABSCAM:

 Feb. 2, 1980: FBI Abscam Probe | Video - ABC News

While “American Hustle” does not tackle the inner-workings of this operation, it does incorporate it’s characters into and does, at one point, acknowledge that Bradley Cooper’s FBI agent character, Richie DiMaso is part of this operation. The film is not about ABSCAM, but is about how a couple of small-time con-artists get hustled into helping DiMaso’s investigation and the interaction of these characters with each other. I did learn more than I knew going into the film about ABSCAM and the fallout of it all.

“American Hustle” does use music well and places some fun 1970’s songs well throughout the film. The songs used are a pretty nice mixture of familiar and unfamiliar tunes from that decade. The music in the film adds spark to the film. I must say, though, that the best usage of a song from the 70’s in a film released in 2013 was the usage of the 1978 Hot Chocolate tune, “Every 1’s a Winner” in “Frances Ha.” That film is set in modern times, however, the use of that song in that film is a winner for sure.
"American Hustle" is not nearly as good as "Argo," the Best Picture winner for 2013, the film to which I have compared it. I would not place "American Hustle" on my list of Top 10 films of this past year, however, it is fairly entertaining and is worth a blu-ray or regular-ray rental from your nearby Redbox.