One has to give credit to American Hustle for being honest. It opens with the statement that “some of this actually happened.” The film immediately subverts the Oscar-baiting pretense of documenting real events, and declares that it’s going to fool around with the facts. It’s a good thing to admit up front, since the movie really doesn’t go very deep into the particulars of the Abscam affair, nor does it really put much thought into the larger themes that lie behind the story. It is mostly concerned with being a flashy piece of prestige entertainment chock full of really fun performances from a cast of great actors. On that level, the film is a real success.
Professional con man Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and her partner/mistress Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) are making a killing with a loan scam in New York City. But that ends when ambitious FBI agent Richard DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) nabs them in a sting. DiMaso offers them a way out of jail time: they need to help him make four additional arrests of corrupt politicians. The two go along with the scheme, targeting the popular mayor of Camden, New Jersey, Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner). Things more or less go according to plan, but the partnership is tested as DiMaso keeps aiming for higher and higher targets, and Irving finds a real friend in Polito.
The film keeps the plot basic, sticking to the bullet points of its real life inspiration. There isn’t much of a greater theme to be realized, as the film takes clear sides between the main characters. The film doesn’t bother to stick its neck out to deliver some sort of perspective or commentary. Its politics are ultimately very confused, all at once condemning government overreach while at times accepting corruption as just a part of how things are done. The film is kind of a con in this way, presenting the façade of a serious examination of the American way of doing things. But like the loans promised by Irving Rosenfeld, that stuff never really materializes.
The artifice itself, however, is worth a look. This is a meticulously crafted world filled with the mythology of the American hustler. No one quite looks like a real person, as the film indulges in the worst sartorial excesses of that particular era. It takes on a cartoonish quality, the film setting the stage for what will become a collection of outrageous but truly compelling character studies. It creates a world where their outlandish behavior makes sense, the backgrounds providing all the context you need to understand how these people function.
In the end, the film is about its performances. The treatment is built around giving these actors as good as platform as necessary to deliver these magnetic turns. In any other context, Bradley Cooper’s frantic broadness as agent DiMaso might not make sense, but here it translates as a sort of nervous energy that springs from unfulfilled ambition. As usual, Christian Bale immerses himself in the character, and he bounces off the rest of this world wonderfully. Amy Adams is stuck playing behind a ridiculous English accent for most of the film, but in this context, it all makes sense. And Jennifer Lawrence just steals the show with a wily performance that transcends its broadness.
American Hustle isn’t as great as it could be, but it’s still pretty good. It’s a lot of fun, at least. There’s a lot of pleasure to be mined from watching these actors do their thing, the movie crafting the perfect environment where all these mismatched energies can work together. The lack of substance doesn’t hurt this film as much as it would others. It kind of seems fitting, in fact. The film commits to the idea of the big lie, and crafts a really compelling one in the process.
My Rating:
