American Hustle - 4 out of 10

Director: David O Russell



 

 

Starring

J-Law

Colin Farrell in 'Horrible Bosses', a.k.a. Batman
Permed Pat Peoples

Robert de Niro as The Crypt Keeper

Mayor Quiff

Amy Adams' Side-boob

 

 The Plot

A film about a con man and con woman who are forced into helping the FBI because the FBI have never before performed a sting operation. And then other things happen, none of which make sense to me.

The Review

Jennifer Lawrence made the film worth watching, despite her significantly reduced screen time compared to the others. But I spent the rest of the film yawning and questioning the motivation of the characters.

American Hustle is a completely unstructured story, devoid of all plot. Or too much plot; it's hard to tell. I get the feeling they tried to fit at least six different scripts into one, but still wanted to give us twenty minutes of backstory at the start.

Several times throughout the film, an issue would arise where I would think, 'You're a two hour film. You don't have time to be dealing with this on top of everything else. Sort yourself out.'

The film, possibly due to having several scripts in one, is a fan of telling, not showing – throwing out the first rule of story-telling.

Beyond the plot, the characters were one-dimensional.

- J-Law is depressed.

- Christian Bale doesn't like being touched and he's a little pedantic.

- The mayor dude is a good guy - an honest politician.

- Bradley Cooper has anger issues. Also, he's the most incompetent FBI agent in the bureaus history and only his boss sees it.

- Amy Adams has some kind of issue that isn't really addressed but I think we're supposed to believe that she was conning herself? Either way, both women use sex to get what they want which is a completely accurate representation of the feminine gender.

Each time I thought it was going to end, each time I thought they'd finally resolve whatever it was they were trying to do, it just kept going. Finally, toward what I thought was the end, someone had a new idea or plan to put into effect and I literally sighed out loud. I was promptly 'shushed' by someone in a row behind me, which really irked me. I don't get shushed, I do the shushing. In the cinema, I am the shusher. I'm like a shushing ninja, throwing my shushes so that the shushee doesn't even know where it came from, but they know they just got told to shut up. American Hustle, however, has turned me into a monster. I have become a shushee and I blame David O Russell.

The only thing worth watching the film for would be J-Law's comedic timing, Christian Bale's whole performance (which was actually pretty damn good, especially after you remember he puts on that stupid voice as Batman) and Amy Adams breasts for getting the most a screen time. And don't think I didn't see that nip-slip you put in there, David O Russell, because I did. We all saw it. I was looking for it in every super low cut top you put her in and got nothing. Then, you give it to us in the sex scene. The unnecessary sex scene. Which, funnily enough, was not quite as unnecessary as the majority of the other scenes that didn't drive what little plot there was forward.

 

Final Thought

Who did I piss off in a past life to deserve listening to Amy Adams fake British accent for two hours while being constantly confronted with her side-boob?