Side Shows intended to take your attention away from many inherent flaws.

Rating: 6/10 (15 January 2014)

What do you get when you put together accomplished actors like Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner and Robert De Niro? Answer – Not much.
OK, another one. What do you get when you throw together Directors like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Wes Anderson? Answer Forgettablefellas oops I mean "American Hustle", broadly speaking a poor imitation of "Goodfellas".
Based on the mostly true details (there is a disclaimer to that exact effect, right at the beginning of the movie) of the well known ABSCAM case of late 70's, Director David O. Russell picks up actors from his previous movies (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook) and also brings in Robert De Niro for a quick cameo appearance but fails to recreate any of the past magic. It is evident that Russell is heavily influenced by fast talking, profanity spewing, dysfunctional and flawed con men/women characters of Scorsese, Ritchie and Tarantino. The movie does have the scope of being ambitious, fun, entertaining, smart, darkly comic, sophisticated adult fare however it fails to live up to the hype and expectations because at the core of the movie is a weak and crumbly script. The narrative is uniformly murky and poorly paced, even incoherent at times.
So what does Russell do? To keep the audience engaged he indulges in amateurish and pointless distractions (Jennifer Lawrence doing a cringe worthy imitation of Wing's rendition of "Live and Let Die" and many such examples.) I would love to see J Law appear in a musical in near future. Talking about the music score, there are many little gems here – Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Santana's Evil Ways, Led Zeppelin's What is and what should never be, Killer Papa was a rolling stone and others.
But soon the viewer realizes that the movie is deliberately trying to distract you (garish costume, smelly nail polish, boob show necklines, fake accents, over the top hair-do's, side stories et al) as it has very little to offer you by way of substance. But to give credit where it is due, Russell keeps the movie visually engaging what with overall production design, coiffure hairstyles, garish costumes and some funky 70's music.
However, what truly stands out in the movie is its two lead female characters – Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence. Both are absolutely glorious, conniving, terrifying, manipulative, sexy and spectacular all the way. Adams has an edge over Lawrence. While regrettably, Lawrence does not get enough screen time, Adams' is a more nuanced character with a lot more screen time. Adams takes her character and does magic with it infusing it with flesh, charm, vulnerability and her own personal touch. "American Hustle" is owned by Amy Adams. This is probably her best performance ever. Amy Adams is definitely the front runner for Academy Award for Best Actress (at the time of writing this review she had already picked up a Golden Globe).
While "American Hustle" disappoints sorely from a story, script and direction point of view it still managed to hold my attention on the basis of its entertaining characters and its visually appealing look and feel.