Wilder Carnes, Staff Editor
Though released with tough competition, American Hustle has proven to be a very entertaining crime drama, and has even received 10 Oscar nominations.
Director David O. Russell, who also directed Silver Linings Playbook last year, has come out with this new film American Hustle. On its opening weekend, December 7, the film earned $740,455.
The film takes place in the full swing of the 1970’s, and is about con-men and an egotistical F.B.I agent driven to dig up whatever scandals he can. Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and his fake-British partner Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), join together to con every person they can by creating fake loans. However, once they are caught, F.B.I agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) threatens to send them away to jail unless they agree to help him catch criminals. As a result, they are forced to deal with powerbrokers and even the mob. In attempts to pull down New Jersey Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), Irving Rosenfeld has to deal with his unpredictable wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) from destroying all of it.
The film is partly true in that it is based off the Abscam Affair used to catch corrupt government officials during the 70’s. Other than that though the film builds a very surreal world in which corruption and law breaking have become humorous, and even fool-proof. Many situations are taken care of simply by talking it over, and convincing people. What makes this so great is that the script really takes control. Dialogue becomes extremely important because it is used to drive the plot. Voice-over is used to move the action throughout the movie. Much like a very long song the camera moves through offices, parties, and other places to keep the pacing of the story along with a lot of music.
Throughout the film characters become flipped around as well. The dichotomy of supposed villains becomes blurred, and what audiences see are people rather than characters. They have strengths and weaknesses no matter where they come from. The script is not the only thing very strong in American Hustle. Without quality actors, and actresses the movie would be incomplete.
Bale is considered to be more than dedicated when it comes to playing a role, taking the character attributes to an extreme. In the film Bale put on 40 pounds to play the clever con man Rosenfeld. He is more than convincing, and plays the careful, cunning, and almost kind seeming man he becomes extremely well. As for the actresses, Adams helps wrap most of the story together with her character.
Though the movie was very good there were some problems. The biggest problem with it being the length. As a story there is just not enough content to make it 138 minutes. A good twenty minutes less and it would probably be fine. The ending is just not as satisfying as it could be. The intention was to trick the audience just like what was happening to one of the characters. This completely defeats the power of the film because it takes away from the main characters defeating the protagonist.
As a whole though the movie was done very well, and is being praised by many viewers. If you have not seen the film hopefully you can go see it. I think this movie deserves 7 out of 10 stars.
Photo credit to www.altfg.com.
