Some of the finest acting performances of the year

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2013)

Reminiscent of light-hearted caper films such as The Sting, American Hustle captures the look and feel of Hollywood films of the seventies and can boast of some of the finest acting performances of the year. The film starts off with two scam artists in cahoots with each other but, before we are through, we have met a Mafia kingpin, a fake Arab sheik, a popular but corruptible Mayor, several on-the-take Congressmen, a dangerously honest wife, and some personally unbalanced FBI types. It is played mostly for laughs, however, and nothing to get upset about, that is, unless you think that depicting predators without empathy, who do not care much about the law and about who they hurt, ought not to be so much fun.
Directed by David O. Russell and co-written by Russell and Earl Warren Singer, the story is loosely based on the Abscam case of the late seventies where an FBI sting operation, partially directed by con artist Melvin Weinberg, used fake Arab sheiks to convict a New Jersey senator, six congressmen, and the mayor of Camden for taking bribes. Coming not far after the political fallout from Watergate, the dubious credibility of the Warren Commission, and the illegal and unpopular Vietnam War, the scandal further contributed to the decline of the American people's trust in their government.
Beginning with a tongue-in-cheek inter-title that tells us that "Some of this actually happened," American Hustle is filled with a relentless energy that does not flag throughout the film's 138-minute length. We first meet middle-aged pot-bellied Irving Rosenfeld portrayed by a bulked-up Christian Bale. Irving has a dry cleaning business which is a front for his lucrative art-forgery scam and his illegal loan shark "business" where he promises to get desperate people the loans they need, then bilking them out of their money without providing any service. Things look up temporarily for Irving when he falls in love with Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), a stripper who has reinvented herself as slick con artist Lady Edith Greensly, an upper crust British executive.
When one of their clients turns out to be FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), however, they are threatened with jail time unless they agree to use their scamming abilities to work for the bureau. Richie is an ambitious schemer who has set his sights on the higher ups in the political and crime world and is busy working on a plan. The idea he comes up with centers on rebuilding the Atlantic City waterfront to make it a haven for casinos and organized crime. To this end, DiMaso sets a trap to bring down the popular but corruptible Mayor of Camden, Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), along with a few Congressmen and some upper echelon crime bosses.
Richie doesn't count, however, on the loose lips of Irving's wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) who does not look too kindly on her husband's partnership/affair with Sydney and who uses Irving's adopted son to hold onto their marriage. Rosalyn's sing-along rendition of Live and Let Die achieves a mixture of humor and sadness that is one of the film's high points. Things go further downhill when the fake Arab Sheik Abdullah, in reality a Mexican Fed named Paco Hernandez (Michael Pena), is caught in his Sheik act by Mafia kingpin Victor Tellegio (Robert de Niro) who, to the surprise of everyone, speaks the Arab language.
As the film goes on, the characters become more over-the-top and the plot becomes more and more convoluted. By the time it ends, everyone's veracity is so compromised that it is hard to tell the difference between the swindler and the victim. The performances are such stand-outs, however, and the fun so contagious that it hardly matters anyway. American Hustle may not be the most profound statement ever made about the corruption that lies just below the surface of the American dream, but it is definitely one of the most entertaining.