Hustling with style, and an unfortunate lack of focus

Rating: 7/10 (24 February 2014)

Could there be anything better to start off with than the absolute critic favorite film of the year? I find it funny how moviegoers constantly refer to this film as overrated, when it actually makes American Hustle seem underrated in the end, getting hatred from non- critics the moment the Oscar nominations were announced.
I expected this movie to include everything movie critics are stereotyped as loving, and I wasn't disappointed. Heck, even I paid attention to those things, which made me really like American Hustle.
Two successful con artists gets put to the test when they go from hustling desperate people, to being forced by the government into conning powerful politicians of New Jersey and mafia overlords. The entire situation is risky, and could end up chaotic when not even the con artists can trust each other anymore and the desperate FBI agent pursuing them starts getting personal with one of the con artists.
Christian Bale absolutely kills it as con artist Irving Rosenfeld, while Amy Adams also does a fine job playing Irving's assistant full of dilemma, Sydney Prosser, though her British accent seems to wear off at certain points. Overall, the acting ensemble is one of the greatest I have seen in quite a while. Cooper's way of speaking and mumbling in different tones also makes his role as wild FBI Agent Richie DiMaso greatest performance so far, if you ask me, and he also gave me the most laughs. Jennifer Lawrence, while overreacting at certain parts, is damn good as the unpredictable wife of Irving, Rosalyn Rosenfeld. I still don't know if she was a genius all along, or just a dumb blonde.
And that is the biggest strength of the movie's rather long plot, the hustling. The whole point of the movie is how hustling to survive is a possibility and director David O. Russell successfully expresses that. This is also what is worth talking about after the credits roll; was it all planned from the start or was there actually any dilemmas?
Unfortunately the movie falls when the plot feels way too long. I thought we were nearing the climax when the con artists were going after the mafia overlord, and then I unfortunately figured out that only one hour and a quarter had passed. It definitely starts to drag on and 20-30 minutes could easily have been left out, like I feel we get way too much information from Irving, Sydney and Richie's lives when it would have been better if it had been more mysterious, like Irvings wife.
This is overall my biggest gripe with Russell's otherwise great directing. He definitely knows how to create stunning settings with great and memorable characters, whose performers act fantastic. He also manages to use the movies' great soundtrack whenever it needs to be used, and the last used piece of music fits perfectly with the ending. But most scenes simply don't flow together as well as they should, and they end up becoming many great scenes instead of a fantastic motion picture. For these reasons, a re-watch can be tiring.
So I love the setting, the soundtrack, the dialog, the acting and the ''Hustle'' of the film, and if only the movie was cut shorter and had flown better together, American Hustle would quite possibly had become one of my favorite films of the decade - 8.3/10