OVP: American Hustle (2013)

Film: American Hustle (2013)

Stars: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner

Director: David O. Russell

Oscar History: 10 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Christian Bale, Actress-Amy Adams, Supporting Actor-Bradley Cooper, Supporting Actress-Jennifer Lawrence, Costume, Film Editing, Production Design, Original Screenplay)

(Not So) Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

If you ever met me in real life (or have met me in real life), and were asked to describe me, the word “movies” would come up at least once within the first fifteen seconds.  I’ve actually tested this theory before with friends and family members.  If it’s not the first thing to come out of their mouth, it’s always there without a leading question.

So when the Oscar nominations were announced, like every year, I was asked my thoughts on it, but one question I didn’t exactly expect was, “why is American Hustle nominated?”  This is a film that has solid Oscar pedigree (all five of the leads have been nominated for or won an Oscar before), is from an award-winning director, and generally seems like a populist hit.  And yet people of the water cooler don’t seem to be buying it.  I saw this movie a couple of weeks ago (a few of our film reviews will not be my trademark “snap judgment” in the next week or so and I’ll note them as such), and here were my thoughts.

First of all, can we all just royally embrace the whole “sort of based on true events” before we get into the validity of the actual story?  I find the second that I see “based on a true story” in the opening titles of a movie that I’m instantly turned off-I mean, we already know that this movie will be based in logic and reality, that most of the story is already known to anyone with a newspaper and a Wikipedia binging habit, and therefore the “what will happen next?” element is gone from the film.  While they kept some of the more fact-based aspects of the story intact (such as the end result of multiple members of Congress being arrested), there were clear indulgences meant to make the film more entertaining and loose.

Since the bulk of you are familiar with the ABSCAM scandals, I won’t bore you with specifics on the plot (plus, my guess is most of you have actually already seen this film), but instead I’ll go to my opinion.  What I think most people are seeing as an issue with the film and its enormous ten Oscar nominations is that this film is hardly what one would consider remarkable.  Hustle has its moments (as do all David O. Russell films), but like all of his three recent Oscar hits (The Fighter, SLP, and this movie), it never seems to hit the “great” button very hard.

This is particularly true for this picture, which in my opinion is the weakest of the three.  The film has tonal problems throughout the movie-is it a winking comedy, is it a drama about lost dreams, is it simply a caper film with some random supporting scene-stealers?  No one can tell-the film feels disjointed, which makes the editing Oscar nomination probably the one that gives me the biggest headache.

The film’s acting, however, suffers pretty severely.  With that cast list, you know that it isn’t entirely the fault of the stars (though I’d like some confirmation that Jeremy Renner has remembered how to act after the glut of terrible he has unleashed on us in the last few years since The Town), but they aren’t doing themselves any favors.  Perhaps because they are relying so heavily on their very specifically tailored looks (with ten nominations, how the hell did the Makeup team, the most deserving aspect of the film, not get nominated?!?) the performances occasionally feel lazy.

Bale’s role as a down-on-his-luck conman lacks any sort of verve or spark or passion-it’s not just the character here-he’s a conman, he should be more enjoyable onscreen.  Compare his character and his personality with someone like Leo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort for a lesson in on-screen charisma and how important it is for an actor.  This is also true of Adams’ Sydney, though here we occasionally get glimpses behind the woman (like when she tells Cooper’s Richie she isn’t really English).  Adams few moments of intrigue, though, don’t make up for the fact that she’s fine, probably just below fine, and certainly not as good as someone like Adele Exarchopolous or Brie Larson from this past year.

And this is where reviewing a film like American Hustle gets royally tricky, because when you throw the concept of “Best of the Year” into the mix, you end up with a problem.  A film like Slumdog Millionaire or The King’s Speech or American Hustle is perfectly adequate, maybe occasionally good, but when you decide to make it compete for Hollywood’s top honor, you have to grade on a curve and in that case the movie just can’t compete. 

Even the most fascinating actors in the film (Cooper, and in particular Lawrence) both have troubles here.  This is partially because both of them are doing a pretty tight balancing act between scene-stealer and overpowering the entire film.  There is literally nothing you want to stare at more than Lawrence as a “neglected,” bored housewife who can manipulate her husband any way she pleases.  We don’t get any hint as to why these two were together in the first place, why someone so young is with Bale and has an elementary school-age son, or why he’s abandoning her for Adams’ Sydney.  It’s hard to care much when Lawrence is actually onscreen, as she’s pure movie star dynamite in the role (and that’s something to be damn impressed by-aside from Best Makeup, she’d be the only other element of the film I would nominate for an Oscar, and in the end I might decide it deserved to win both), but her character is adrift in Russell’s narrative.

And that’s perhaps the worst part about American Hustle-there are WAY too many plot holes to fill.  Russell is too intent on giving us hair and movie stars and fun to actually string together a cohesive movie with sense and reason.  The movie would be forgiven all of this (movie stars and crazy makeup ARE fun), but then they decided to give it a bunch of shiny statues and we had to take it seriously.  And this movie cannot withstand the pressure.