Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (May 29, 2024)
Ever the bridesmaid and never the bride, David O. Russell has received three Oscar nominations as Best Director without a victory. For the third and most recent of these films, we go to 2013’s American Hustle.
Set in the 1970s, Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) runs a small chain of dry cleaning stores and also engages in some loan scams on the side. When he meets Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), they immediately fall for each other and she becomes an active participant in his schemes.
One major snarl: Irving remains married to the difficult and unsteady Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence). He stays with her largely to support his adopted stepson Danny (Dante and Santino Corbo), and surprisingly, Sydney accepts this situation.
When FBI Agent Richie DeMaso (Bradley Cooper) snags Irving and Sydney in their scams, he forces them to agree to work with him to help his career. This leads them through a mix of sting operations that eventually threaten to spin out of control.
When I first discussed Hustle on a discussion board in 2013, I offered one snarky comment: “On tonight's episode of American Hustle, the role of Martin Scorsese will be played by David O. Russell and the part of Robert De Niro will be played by Christian Bale”.
This semi-dismissal may seem unfair, but the truth remains: Russell actively channeled his inner Scorsese for Hustle. Granted, many modern filmmakers echo Scorsese, but Russell took it farther than most for Hustle.
That becomes a problem, just because it can make Hustle seem more like an imitation than the work of a director who wants to establish his own style. Perhaps because Hustle represented his seventh feature, Russell figured he already enjoyed enough of a reputation that his stab at Scorsese wouldn’t tarnish his career.
And it didn’t. As noted, Hustle earned Russell a Best Director nomination, and it snared nine other Oscar nods, including one for Best Picture.
We’ve not heard much from Russell in the decade since Hustle, as he’s only released two more movies. Unfortunately, both were problematic as 2015’s Joy and 2022’s Amsterdam came with major issues.
Perhaps this will leave Hustle as Russell’s final truly well-received movie. If so, it seems like a mixed bag in terms of his legacy.
I feel this way not solely because of the Scorsese Wannabe Factor. While that plays a part, it doesn’t turn into the only concern here.
Instead, Russell seems so preoccupied to create a wild, rollicking movie that he forgets to deliver a particularly coherent end product. Hustle feels in love with its own abandon.
As a result, Russell favors the spectacle of individual scenes over the way in which the whole comes together. Hustle delivers plenty of show-stopping sequences, plenty of which don’t really serve the story in any clear manner.
For instance, when Rosalyn focuses on revenge, she goes through an aggressive house-cleaning ritual accompanied by her performance of Wings’ “Live and Let Die”. Does this scene entertain? Yes, as Lawrence gulps scenery with gusto.
Does it do much to help advance the narrative? Not really, since we already know Rosalyn exists as an unsteady force.
Segments like this helped Lawrence, Bale, Adams and Cooper get Oscar nominations for Hustle. None won, though it should be noted that both Bale and Lawrence did earn Oscars for performances in other Russell movies..
Clearly actors like to work with Russell since his movies seem to add to their trophy cases. In the case of Hustle, though, Russell’s indulgences just don’t help the final product come together well.
Hammy as she may be, Lawrence does deliver a delightful performance, and Cooper does well, too. Unlike the wild Lawrence, Cooper helps ground the movie, as his take on Richie becomes one of the few in which an actor doesn’t try too hard to ACT!
And then there’s Bale. I’ve liked his work as far back as 1987’s Empire of the Sun but at some point, he started to veer too far toward “showy” performances that seemed more focused on personal transformations than actual acting.
To play Irving, Bale packed on the pounds and also allowed himself to be saddled with the world’s worst combover. He does so in service of a performance that overtly rips off De Niro.
Except Irving never vaguely feels like a real person, as Bale delivers a cinematic creation with all the seams on display. Late in the movie, Bale and the actual De Niro share a scene, and this feels surreal given how actively Bale steals from De Niro.
Despite all these knocks, I find Hustle to offer an entertaining ride. Flawed and messy as it might be, Russell moves it along at a good pace, and it never ceases to be fairly fun.
Hustle disappoints simply because it comes with too many issues as it goes. It feels more concerned with cinema-craft than actual storytelling and falls short of what it could’ve been.
