The film's greatest hustle is making you think it's better than it is. The performances are enormously enjoyable though.

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2013)

There are cons, hustles, lies, tricks and conspiracies aplenty in writer-director David O. Russell's Oscar-baiting American Hustle. It comes with the territory, of course, in this ostensibly based-on-a-true-story film about con artists working with the FBI to take down corrupt government officials. But one of the biggest hustles Russell pulls off is, quite simply, convincing audiences that they've just watched a great movie. There's no denying that American Hustle is filled with sizzling performances and some of the year's best scenes. But it's also a bit of a hollow, sprawling mess, strung together with great moments that don't really add up to a coherent whole.
Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) is a small-time con artist who's figured out how to swindle his way to moderate success. Unexpectedly, he finds a soulmate in Sydney (Amy Adams), who's equally adept at lying to people and winning their trust and life savings. Rumbled by FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), Irving and Sydney - the latter in the guise of her British alter ego, Lady Edith Greensly - agree to help the FBI catch government officials in the act of taking bribes. Around the hapless form of genuine good guy Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) evolves a crazy scheme comprising a made-up Arab sheikh, greedy mobsters, opportunistic politicians, real and fake money, hidden cameras... and the potentially disrupting influence of Irving's slightly unhinged wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence).
At its best, there's a loose, loopy charm to American Hustle. It's a story of bad comb-overs and even worse decisions that starts out strongly, as Irving and Sydney take turns narrating their unconventional love story. Several scenes are so outlandishly silly - pretty much any involving the cooked-up Arab sheikh, Rosalyn and Richie's beleaguered boss Stoddard (Louis C.K., hilarious) - that it's impossible not to be swept up in the giddy swirl of confusion and double-crossing in which Russell's characters have wilfully trapped themselves. In those moments when the black comedy peeks through the pretense of its plot, American Hustle approaches the sublime.
But Russell's film - which he's revealed is about one-third improvised - is almost too loose and it's certainly too long. The moments that everyone will remember are padded out with narrative convolutions that don't add all that much to proceedings. Most of the scenes drag on a little longer than they presumably would have if the actors had stuck to a script. It's exactly as if Russell let his actors off a leash, and couldn't bear to excise some of their more free-styling moments - even if it would contribute to a smarter, tighter final cut of the film. As a result, the considerable zip, charm and joy of American Hustle's best sequences dissipate from moment to moment, making for a curiously deflating viewing experience.
There's no denying, however, that Russell has amassed a clutch of impressive performances from the combined casts of his last two films (The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook). Bale anchors the entire enterprise with a knowing, vanity-free turn as a follicly-challenged hustler with a hidden heart of gold. His silent reactions to the insanity going on around him - whether it's Richie's ego bursting through the ceiling or Rosalyn arguing him into submission - are pitch-perfect. Cooper, too, continues to prove he can actually act under Russell's direction. He has a fine handle on Richie's enormous ego and burgeoning delusions of power and control, delighting in the sheer absurdity of this lawman who gets drunk with delight when he takes a walk on the unlawful side of the street.
Awards buzz has been heaped upon Russell's leading ladies as well, and for good reason. Adams spends rather too much of the film off-screen (especially in its second half), but she's so raw, brave, vulnerable and brassy - often in the same scene - that she provides the film with an unexpectedly truthful emotional core. In Adams' hands, Sydney is a rounded, sympathetic creation: one who loses and finds herself again amidst all the lies and deception.
Lawrence is a hoot as the mouthy, delusional Rosalyn, tottering through the entire film like a bleached-blonde time-bomb that could explode at any second. She's scintillating, maddening and frequently hilarious, even if it's hard to shake the feeling that she's just not right for the part. Lawrence is talented, no doubt about it - so talented that she almost makes the role work - but she just can't help coming off as precisely what she is: a young girl playing dress-up. Imagine an older actress - say, Julianne Moore, Naomi Watts or heck, even Amy Adams - playing the same role; she would lend the sad, dark weight of age and experience to Rosalyn's kookiness, something the sadly miscast Lawrence can't quite muster (through no fault of her own!) at the tender age of twenty-two.
Watch American Hustle for its plot - or a faithful re-enactment of the FBI's Abscam operation in the late 1970s - and you'll be sorely disappointed. Its story is a jumbled mess that isn't half as clever or complicated as it thinks it is. But Russell's cast shine brightly nonetheless. Their bold performances - and gleefully terrible hairdos - are the real strength and energy of Russell's film. For many moments, they make it easy to believe that American Hustle is the real thing. But take a closer look and it becomes clear that this diamond was really just cubic zirconia all along.