One of the best films made in 2015

Rating: 10/10 (22 February 2015)

American Hustle, loosely based on the late 1970s Abscam political scandal with a social story added to puff it up, is one of the greatest films of this era and easily the best film Hollywood has produced since No Country for Old Men. To recite the reasons why this film attains such Olympian levels would take a dissertation; I'll try to do it in a few paragraphs.
-- Acting of the principal roles. To say American Hustle if full of stars is like saying 9/11 was a national disaster. The acting of the principal and supporting roles is universally insightful and credible, beginning with Christian Bale who turns in the best work of his career, full of subtlety and nuance yet laced with over-the-top emotions. He is equaled by the star-turn of Jennifer Lawrence, America's hottest actress who is undoubtedly this era's version of Barbara Stanwyck or Susan Hayward. Watch Hayward's Academy Award-winning performance in 1958's I Want To Live and convince yourself this isn't Lawrence playing that role. Her acting is at over often over the peak emotionally and lacks subtlety, but that will come with age and experience. At age 24, she is already among the greatest female stars and is destined for further greatness in the years to come. Amy Adams, one of the best supporting actresses in Hollywood, also is the best here she's ever been, expanding her resume with a sexual performance far from the buttoned down roles of Doubt, Julie & Julia and elsewhere. Bradley Cooper, who helped fund the film, is far more effective than in his last film with many of these actors, Silver Linings Playbook, as are the supporting actors from Jeremy Renner as Carmine Polito down to Robert DeNiro appearing unbilled. Few films with such star power achieve anywhere near the orgiastic heights of American Hustle.
-- Universally wonderful and credible acting is always a result of direction, so equal marks to director Mark Russell.
-- Next on my list is the camera-work that captures every actor in extreme close-up at one time or another, revealing their humanity and transcending what could have been cardboard cut-outs instead of flesh and blood people. Watch Jennifer Lawrence's make-up when Pete Musane (Jack Huston) wipes away her tears after her confrontation with husband Bale when she reveals to the mob what's really going on. Or stay tuned for Bale's carefully nuanced sideways glances throughout, always caught in close up. Remarkable camera-work throughout is among the most distinguishing landmark's of this awesome movie.
-- A script, partially based in reality, that moves at laser speed, rarely giving you a chance to catch your breath, while also telling a compelling story about greed, incompetence, lust, family life, loyalty and the sidebar we love to see on the screen these days, the Mafia. Never does this script let us down, whether it's telling the story of Abscam, the real-life political scandal of the 1970s, or the made up story about a scammer-art dealer-laundry owner and his complicated relationships with a family, girlfriend, loan marks, the FBI and all the other slime that comes into contact with his life. The script gets an A-plus and is nearly as good as the Coen's Western metaphor, No Country for Old Men.
-- Danny Elfman's musical score, featuring lots of real-life 1970s hits and even an occasional hit from the 1960s -- White Rabbit is from 1967 -- endorses the period and its excesses to a capital T.
-- Production values and editing makes a film with lots of drama and negative content into a joy to watch from the opening to closing scenes. Instead of being repelled at the shenanigans of these hucksters and their ties to organized (and disorganized) crime, we revel in joy from scene to scene watching these characters in our voyeuristic pattern of living a second life as a bystander to the history being portrayed on the screen.
-- Art direction, costume design, look and feel. Compare this movie, which accurately depicts the late disco era, to the failure in art design, costuming, hair and makeup of The Last Days Of Disco, a 1990s fantasy about 1979, to see how this aspect of filmmaking can make the difference between a movie of greatness and one of mediocrity.
-- Editing and continuity. The story begins in one place, transfer to another place and time, then returns to the original spot and moves forward in roughly chronological order from that point. At all time the editing is superb; there is never a lost scene or one that seems out of place or order.
I watch 30 movies a month and rarely do I see one where all the elements come together so well to create such a wonderful atmosphere of entertainment. American Hustle is sure to be watched as long as people watch movies and can take its place in the pantheon of social misfit-crime dramas that began with The Godfather and have carried into modern times through the likes of Goodfellas, Casino, Kill the Irishman and No Country for Old Men.
Having seen this film just about every week since August, I would now say it is -- along with The Pianist and No Country For Old Men -- one of the three best films I have seen in the 21st century. Of the three, this is the most remarkable filmmaking.