So much talent and so much fun

Rating: Null/10 (8 January 2014)

"Goodfellas" meets "The Sting" in this gloriously fun black comedy co-written and directed by David O Russell with a cast to die for. I confess that I would have gone to see it for Jennifer Lawrence alone and she gives another wonderful performance as the blousy and totally wacky wife of the narrator Irv played by Christian Bale looking a million miles from his lean role as "Batman", all bespectacled, bewigged and paunchy. The revelation though is Amy Adams who is terrific in the best (and sexiest) role of her career as the Irv's partner in hustling and in fornicating Sydney. Then there is Bradley Cooper as the manic FBI agent who wants to use Irv and Sydney to ensnare some bigger fish and Jermey Renner as the first of those biggest fish.
As if this wasn't enough, there is a surprise cameo role by a big name actor who is uncredited. Plus the five lead actors almost have a sixth companion in the form of their hair, three of them appearing in rollers and one of them with a quiff which alone makes it clear - as if the clothes and the music were insufficient - that we are in the late 1970s.
At the beginning of the movie, we are told that "some of this actually happened" and that is a reference to the "Abscam" operation mounted by the FBI with the aid of a fake sheikh. But nothing and nobody is real here; everything and everyone is obfuscation if not outright deception. At one point, Irv describes his wife as "the Picasso of passive- aggressive karate" and Russell draws from a varicoloured palette of talent to present us with an animated version of Hieronymus Bosch.