superb performances but oddly unsatisfying

Rating: 7/10 (22 January 2014)

American Hustle is a real con-artist/hustle/heist type of film, and one of the best for plot, writing and complexity of the story, it has you guessing all the way through and is very suspenseful. I had absolutely no idea how it would be resolved... well, until the bit in the lawyer's office. Its a "period" piece, set in 1970s America, and the fashions and styling of the film were very good. The soundtrack was great.
Bale, Cooper, Adams, Lawrence and Renner ... and De Niro ... were exemplary of actors incredibly deep into character; they were all barely recognisable and each performance was gripping, believable and impressive. Jennifer Lawrence, girl du jour, was luminous as the unstable and rather irresponsible wife of Christian Bale's overweight, balding hustler; he was quite gross in many respects. Cooper was the over zealous FBI Agent who you sort of wanted to win out but the whole film was back to front in that good guys were perhaps the crooks, or were they? It was a little of a grey area. He was sexy, funny and obnoxious in equal measure. The script was great, the plot was great ... as a con-artist movie this is up there with the greats BUT it was largely unsatisfying emotionally. It was a really good film but not really all that enjoyable. Sure, it was entertaining and laugh out loud funny in places but it wasn't a comedy, was definitely drama, and watched more like a documentary than a film. It was good but one came away feeling a bit underwhelmed. None of the characters were particularly likable and whilst the story was gripping, you weren't invested in the characters, just curiosity about the story. It was, I can only describe it as, an empty and unsatisfying experience and the ending... I don't know, it didn't please. A film with cracking potential but just doesn't make its somehow, and I can't really put my finger on why.