American Hustle is a great movie with a greater identity crisis

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2014)

With a cast consisting of names such as Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner & Amy Adams, it's difficult not to be slightly excited about American Hustle. All of these are accomplished actors whom have starred in great movies, so I had fairly high hopes for this film to say the least.
American Hustle tells the story of Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale); an accomplished con-man who makes his living scamming clients out of thousands of dollars. Along with his British accomplice Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), the couple make large amounts of money by combining their skills and knowledge, until an FBI agent by the name of Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) busts their scheme and forces Irving to work for him in order to catch other criminals in the act. Things become increasingly complicated once Irving's troubled wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) comes into the mix, along with many other characters nobody would want to be mixing with.
Before getting into some of the issues with which the film suffers, it should be known that, as expected, all of these actors perform to an incredibly high standard. Even the scenes which seem fairly redundant (and there are a few) are largely redeemed by this all-star collection of talented individuals. The leading roles played by Christian Bale & Amy Adams were particularly memorable, but they in no way overshadowed any of the other performances. The script was slick and fast-paced, which is exactly what you would want from a film of the 'hustle' genre. This should come as no surprise as the director of the film, David O. Russel, has worked with most of the actors previously.
It's difficult to pin-point exactly what was wrong with American Hustle, but I left the cinema feeling slightly more empty than I had hoped. The acting was entertaining, the soundtrack was stellar and the directing was fast-paced to match the mood of the film, but it didn't have the 'wow' factor I had hoped. Don't get me wrong, it was consistently enjoyable and there were very few moments I felt bored, but there wasn't really anything that raised it higher than the average film aside from the performances. The plot became slightly tangled due to the number of things happening throughout, and never really had highs which would push it up a few marks. Also, it seemed like the film was trying to be a comedy at parts, with certain lines of dialogue being genuinely funny, but then other scenes cemented it as a crime drama. If humour was included more frequently, maybe it wouldn't have felt so peculiar.
American Hustle is a very entertaining crime/hustle movie which contains countless excellent performances from well-known actors, but also one which lacks the suave tone of it's characters. I enjoyed it and could recommend it to people, but I don't think I could urge anybody to go and see it immediately. As mentioned however, the soundtrack really was something to behold, with many era-specific songs featured.