American Hustle

So, my first update in 2014! This is exciting. It’s hard to review movies and have a full time job at the same time. Don’t get me wrong; I love to blog and give you guys updates on my take of Hollywood movies and pop culture but I’m an independent African American Woman who needs to put food on the table, that’s not all true, I’m not African American but yes, I do need to work to feed myself although by feeding I meant to say that I buy fast food every day and prepare my own meal once in a blue moon and I make I don't run adverts here and I don't have a sponsor either and you guys don't pay me with cash but with love and that's more than enough for me. With that said, American Hustle is also about embracing the weird in you, in a lot of ways. It’s about embracing the grotesque talent in you, if you consider being a con artist grotesque, but the script is written so well that you can’t help but feel your heart warming as the story unfolds with the actors playing their part so seamlessly well, they all make it look so easy to act. I’m sure all the gays went out of the movie theatre feeling like “I’ve always known I wanted to be an actor” and it’s good, it happened to me too so not only is the movie a bit not so easy on the Indian ‘conservative’ palate, it inspires you and a lot of movies don’t do this anymore. I love Gravity, it was my favorite movie of 2013 but I did NOT want to be under NASA’s pay roll after leaving the movie theatre, trust you me!

American Hustle was released fairly late in India, that too as part of the ‘Oscar Fever’ line up. I like the custom, the many furs that Amy Adams wore, the way Bradley Cooper perms his hair and the hilariously scarce hair on Christian Bale’s head and who can forget his slick and realistic New York Italian accent! Jennifer Lawrence, any movie is lucky to have her, with a hair do kept alive by endless streams of hairspray and a character borderline psychotic, she is just amazing. The CinemaScope is a herald for the 70’s, it screams disco too a part where Bradley Cooper presses his junk to Amy Adam's hump while Donna Summer is played on the dance floor, disco ball spinning of course. Even if not for the custom every scene was so well executed because David O' Russel directed it so well without any bleeding of a retro look for the sake of retro look a lot of indie movies are adopting these days. In other words, the direction is modern but tells a tale of something that happened in the past without leaving out the new too much, it’s a technique that is very well carried out. 

There is no boredom because the script takes you to more complications and twists again and again. It all started with Irving (Christina Bale) and Sydney (Amy Adams) planning a con wisely however ended up being caught unwisely by an FBI agent Richie (Bradley Cooper) and the story goes around to prove the "some of this actually happened" caption at the beginning when Richie hunches the duo along his sting operation, yes, it actually happened kids, look it up. They go so far as to con New Jersey mayor Carmine (Jeremy Renner) who I never knew could act so well. The mayor character is so well written, he's charming, loving and genuinely loves his people but not all his techniques are PG. 

Nobody would believe the movie to be a dark comedy; I watched it believing it’s a political drama and was still in for it because the movie opened with a caption “Some of this actually happened”.  I ended up laughing at lot, especially at Jennifer Lawrence. The scene where she almost burned down the house by trying to microwave an aluminum foil covered food all the while spitting “Nobody can tell me what to do. Do you think I’m stupid?” was epic. I hated her for almost ruining her husband's Irving's ticket to be off the hook but loved her when she learned her lesson at the same time, only the greats can execute it so well like she did. If I keep on telling you all these, this review is starting to get into spoilers territory. Dark comedy it is but it still lets your heart beat a lot in scenes when the deception started to move away like the protagonist and his scheme mates planned. The scene with Robert Di Niro, who for some reason is not credited, is clearly the most heart beating adrenaline infusing scene of the whole movie. 

Although there is a lot of deception in the movie, the script is so clever, it steers clear of making the audience depressed in a way that all the deception were actually needed to bring out the best or the inevitable. All the schemes, the lies, the deception brings out what is best for all of the character, some learned their lessons and all the negative actions that your parents taught you about while  you’re young summed up the inevitable and warms your heart, it also makes  you question if you’re smart enough. I like it when a movie inspires me the way American Hustle did. Of course I won’t change to be a con artist but at least sprint my brain to be more active or I can try to say the least.