Critics end up getting hustled by this cinematic "Goodfellas" wannabe

Rating: 4/10 (17 January 2014)

David O. Russell, now a shining light in the American film industry, has returned after his recent success with "Silver Linings Playbook." His new entry for the Oscar competition is "American Hustle," which is loosely based on the ABSCAM scandals of the late 70s and early 80s.
Russell's new picture aspires to be an updated "Goodfellas;" except here, the protagonists are not Mafiosi but low-rent con artists. The story begins slowly as a narrator fills in the background of the story's anti-hero, Irving Rosenfeld--part legitimate owner of a couple of dry cleaning establishments out on Long Island and part unsavory loan shark and middleman for art forgers. Christian Bale as Rosenfeld does the most convincing job of the principal actors in conveying just how this petty criminal fell from grace (notably Bale gained fifty pounds for the role).
Less successful is Amy Adams, who plays Sydney Prosser, Rosenfeld's con artist girlfriend who pretends to be a British aristocrat ('Lady Edith Greensley'). There's just something about Adams that prevents me (no matter how hard she tries) from believing that she can play the role of a true "bad girl" (others, of course, are free to disagree).
The break into Act Two occurs when the FBI catches Irving and Sydney perpetuating one of their loan scams and forces them to help flush out four new marks. Sydney wants to flee the country, but Irving refuses, since he's still married and has a young son. As it turns out, the film's antagonist really is Richie, played by an over-the-top Bradley Cooper--a belligerent FBI agent, who continually pressures Irving to cooperate and browbeats his own boss to accept some of his far-fetched plans.
Russell has been quoted as saying that he concentrated more on the characters' stories, rather than the overall plot. Nonetheless, a good deal of the dialogue is improvised and I found many of the interpersonal scenes to be unnecessarily drawn out (Jennifer Lawrence has little to do as Rosalyn, Irving's over emotional wife, who eventually comes to accept that Irving is no longer attracted to her).
Many of the principals' machinations are supposed to be comic in nature—-particularly those of Richie, who at one point slugs his boss in the face with a telephone. Ritchie reminds me of Cooper's character in "Silver Linings." who also can't control his temper.
Unfortunately, it's really the "Hustle" story itself that leaves quite a bit to be desired. It's a story virtually devoid of any high stakes. The whole idea of course is that this is a story of low stakes-—and we're supposed to feel bemused by the characters' pettiness. But much of the pettiness simply isn't very compelling at all.
We have such low moments in Act II, as Sydney convinces the FBI secretary to make the $2 million unauthorized wire transfer and then Richie's boss' boss, Amado, inexplicably green lights Richie's escapades. The bulk of the machinations involve Richie's quest to entrap Polito, the corrupt Camden, New Jersey mayor. The closest we get to high drama is when Polito brings Irving's fake sheik to a casino party, where they end up meeting a real mobster, Victor Tellegio, a former Meyer Lansky associate played by Robert DeNiro. Tellegio tries to outfox the "sheik" by speaking Arabic, but Irving's friend turns the tables by showing that he knows Arabic too.
The rest of "American Hustle" is anti-climactic. With the Camden mayor's assistance, a number of Congressmen are taken down, after they accept bribes. The big "twist" at the end is too little and too late. It's not necessary to reveal the ending, but suffice it to say that the FBI's plan to fry some bigger fish, goes awry.
I'm not sure whether it was that I didn't really care too much about the principals and their back stories, or whether the twists and turns in the plot amounted to nothing more than "small potatoes." I do know that the film's Hollywood happy ending has nothing to do with what happened in real life (the wife committed suicide and the mistress divorced Mel Weinberg, Irving's real-life prototype, and no longer talks to him).
If there's anything good to say about this film, it has more to do with the re-creation of the late 70s era, replete with all those golden oldies on the soundtrack. It's too bad that most of the characters here never rise above the level of caricature.
The subjects of the real hustle appear to have been all those critics, who lapped up this overrated cinematic sleight of hand, in their desperate desire to discover a new Scorsese-like auteur.