The Con Goes On and On and On...and So Does the Hair!

Rating: 7/10 (6 March 2014)

American Hustle" (hereafter "AH") is a reasonably entertaining and engrossing variation of the sturdy "Small-Time Con Man is Pushed Into the Big Leagues" plot. The small-time con man is the paunchy and sleazy-looking Irving (Christian Bale) with ratty hair that has a life of its own. Irving gravitates toward scams and fraudulent businesses because he remembers the racketeers and hoodlums taking advantage of his glass-selling father, and wants to be the on the winning side. Mainly he dabbles in selling art forgeries and using the proceeds to arrange phony loans to desperate customers. Somewhat amazingly, he attracts the romantic attention of a sultry, slinky red-haired distaff con artist Sydney Prosser (alias: Lady Edith Greensly) (Amy Adams). Together they stage more lucrative, but still relatively low-level scams. Irving keeps Sydney as a mistress and comforting muse and morale-booster because he is married to shrill, maritally frustrated, and seemingly dense Rosalyn Rosenfeld (Jennifer Lawrence from the "The Hunger Games") and has a young son by her. Almost inevitably, Irving and Sydney choose the wrong mark for one of their bogus art sales - excitable, eager, but somewhat meatheaded mama's boy Richard "Richie" Dimaso, FBI Agent.
To avoid jail time, Irving and Sydney agree to help "Richie" orchestrate an "Abscam" inspired sting operation intended to expose at least four U.S. congressmen for bribery and, I think, violation of immigration laws since a "wealthy Sheik Abdullah" (actually Paco Hernandez) offers to fast-track his American naturalization process for a hefty fee. Somehow, all this action also involves "slightly unscrupulous" New Jersey Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) and his desire to develop waterfront property businesses and casinos to help his constituents. And that's the plot of AH.
Besides the reasonable pleasure of watching the scams (and counterscams and double-crosses) unfold and unravel, AH also vividly and convincingly re-creates the outlandish and kooky zeitgeist of the '70s with well-chosen '70s song classics (like Steely Dan's "Reeling in the Years" and Wings's "Live and Let Die"), the occasional parties, and introduction of new gadgets like microwaves, which Rosalyn learns are hostile to aluminum foil. Especially, AH does not forget the hair styles. Irving isn't the only one with follicle trouble; his wife Rosalyn's 'do looks like yellow spaghetti; Mayor Polito has the Elvis pompadour; even FBI agent Richie (in a hilarious sequence) shows how he gets all the little curls in his hair as his mother yells at him to fix the fish tank filter. Richie's exasperated and brow-beaten FBI superior and mentor Stoddard Thorsen (Louis C.K.) provides some humorous bits as he tries to stop Richie from squandering funds on an entire hotel floor for the scam, and to relate and finish an ice-fishing experience he had with his brother as a kid. Jennifer Lawrence (as Rosalyn) is a hoot as the complaining "bubblehead" who nevertheless has valid objections against Irving's treatment of her and even advises him on a Plan B when one of his cons (can't remember which one) starts to go south. From time to time, AH also provides voice-overs (mainly from Irving but sometimes from Sydney) explaining his philosophy, his motivation, and the movie's plot.
Thus, AH has its positive qualities, but for me the movie stumbled somewhat because it fails to follow Irving's credo to work on small, simple cons. The straightforward plot starts to wind back upon itself as cons get conned and counter-conned and players get played and counterplayed. Robert DeNiro's fleeting and almost-stereotypical but expectedly effective portrayal of mobster Victor Tellegio wanting a piece of the "Sheik"'s action actually, I humbly think, needlessly complicates matters. Eventually, at about the midway point, AH becomes, as another Amazon.com reviewer puts it, "yawny", and I momentarily lost track. That was unfortunate for me, because the climax and denouement of AH, with some ironic turns and fates for characters we expected otherwise that the midway point might have explained.
Overall, I generally recommend the movie and its various retroactive pleasures (including predicaments that could have been solved by cell phones and Internet access if they had existed in the early '70s), especially the funky coiffures. But try to keep your attention focused, because AH's con goes on and on and on, and might leave you behind if you're not careful.