Dull & Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (13 January 2014)

Great actors do not always make great movies - Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner. I thought the acting in itself was actually very good but the story - extremely dull & disappointing. I am at a loss as to how/why American Hustle is being hailed as such a great movie when it lacks any colour or imagination. The premise of the story on the whole is quite good. Reading the story on which it is based makes for very interesting reading and as this is an adaption surely some more hustle (pardon the pun) could have been added. Instead it seems they play the whole thing down. So Cooper's character doesn't get the credit for bringing down politicians? Hardly the greatest ending to a story. The whole thing from beginning to end is bogged down by dialogue. At every turn it seems things just drag on and on and on - the movie goes for 2 hours 18 minutes & could have easily squeezed into an hour and a half. I read that a lot of the dialogue was improvised - perhaps some sort of script may have been in order because it really killed the movie for me. The only reason it gets 6 is because I thought the performances of Lawrence, Bale & Adams were very good. It's just a shame about the story they were given to act to. Is anyone else getting a little tired of the Bradley Cooper "I'm a little bit crazy but not so crazy that you don't like me" routine or is it just me? I'm not sure if the whole thing just went over my head but I watch about 100 movies a year and I can safely say this won't make the top 20.