Every time I hear the words “David O. Russell”, I know one of two things will, in the end, represent the film:
1. A quirky premise that devolves into pretentious musings on life
2. A genuinely entertaining movie that, while not the greatest thing since sliced bread, serves to be unique and sui generis.
I Heart Huckabees fell into the former category for me. I honestly couldn’t make much sense of what Russell meant to convey with that superbly strange bit of cinema. Silver Linings Playbook, however, took enough of the tropes of romantic comedies into strange and twisted directions that it made the characters fairly endearing. Yes, I would consider that a love or hate movie, but I just liked it. Yep, I’m that weird guy. American Hustle, on the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed. Sure, it lacks real emotional connections for most of its cast, and the plot get incredibly complicated at points, but the witty writing and just plain strange situations more than make up for it in laughs.
I have a hard time putting my finger on what works, exactly, about this overly-long con-man dramedy lossely based on the ABSCAM scandal of the late 1970s. Clearly, plot does not seem to have been a giant focus; for the majority of the audience, I’m going to guess the general specifics of who’s scamming who for illegal casinos licenses procured by the vague sheikh person does not a compelling tale make. Rather, Christian Bale’s Irving Rosenberg really nails all those things both endearing and funny about the Seventies. Forty-pounds or more overweight with an incredibly convincing comb-over, Bale just hams up the screen with his strange persona in nearly every scene. The disheveled appearance of the conman, and why two beautiful women would want to be in love with him at all, remains both an ironic statement of fashion in the era as well as a pretty good visual joke.
Even so, I’ve heard a lot of people say the movie’s really about ambition and ambitious people, which could be said for Bradley Cooper. Cooper plays the same hyper-talkative and manic role he performs in just about every movie, which works as well as you’d expect. He’s an FBI agent with a perm and a fiancee who forces Rosenberg and Amy Adams’ character (honestly, I found it hard to keep track of anyone’s names during the film) to perform a con for legitimate purposes on the mayor of Camden, New Jersey (Jeremy Renner). I can best describe the mechanics of the plot as “overly complicated”. Does it have themes? Yes, sure, if you look for them. The plot, though, gets hyper-confusing unless you really pay attention. People and names and specific just get lost in the shuffle; even Jennifer Lawrence merely appears for flavor, and she’s plot relevant for exactly one scene.
Rather, I think we could call it a character piece of sorts. Everybody wants it all, and everybody does different things to get it. Some of them deceive other people; some just plain work hard. Others use duplicitous means. The way they go about it makes their interactions interesting, and how the people respond to the shifting vicissitudes of their profession give you a sketch of their personality. Problem is, you never focus on any member of the ensemble cast enough to obtain any deeper sense of motivation or meaning. Rather, it’s a much more “objective” viewing experience where you don’t so much relate to the characters as see them go through a series of similar events. They all link via pure happenstance, and watching them struggle turns into our entertainment. The ultimate point of the film does not go beyond that, at least on a first viewing. Like real life, it lacks a big dramatic arc to attach to these events. In a word, it is procedural. But the good kind of procedural, the kind that keeps you involved in seemingly mundane events just for the sheer spectacle and vivacity of it all. You have to appreciate the ambition to make this all function properly in the visual medium. The performances make it work, even when the rest of the film strains under the lack of any kind of real tension.
That makes American Hustle, in effect, a sprawling mess of a movie with lots of good performances, nuggets of hilarity, and just a film about fun, which can rarely be said these days. Honestly, to explain what makes it good escapes my ability to convey, but there’s an atmosphere here that appears like everyone involved enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The improvisational nature of the dialogue and the plot phrase themselves akin to a jazz solo hovering around the tonic – when things come together, they usually do so beautifully (just listen to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue). You just feel it, and in my gut I gotta say American Hustle surprised me with how much I like it. I don’t know why I like it, but in my experience you don’t so much know why you like something; you just explain it away after the fact with big words and lots of stuff. The mystery here is one of those things you have to see, rather than say.
On the other hand, I can see exactly why critics and audiences diverge so much on it, at least on the Internet. The critics praised American Hustle to high heaven when it first released, which led a number of people who wouldn’t see a David O. Russell film to see a David O. Russell film. He is, for lack of better terminology, not a mainstream director interested in pleasing his audiences. Most people probably expected that, and what they got was this complicated, sprawling, fast-paced conman movie with famous actors. Expectation probably created some kind of Internet flame wars somewhere (especially on IMDB, where a concerted effort to peg the film down a notch gives it a 7.8 rating). Still, American Hustle gathered $251 million on a $40 million budget, and to whatever you want to attribute that success, at least it isn’t total trash.
I recommend it!
