"The art of survival is a story that never ends"

Rating: 7/10 (31 March 2014)

American HUSTLE is a whimsical social satire on greed and the amoral rat & mouse game of FBI/governmental entrapment, with a lot of insightful stuff about the world of appearances, selfish human agendas, and the phoniness in general behind them all. Set in the late 1970s, it captures (and ridicules)that era very well, especially with its use of 70s theme music for specific scenes.
While American HUSTLE kept my attention throughout its two-plus-hour length, it may move a little too slowly for some tastes and could definitely use more hard tension. Much of the persistent humor is of the smirk-guffaw variety. There are also frequent attempts at lol-slapstick, but the exploding microwaves and one guy beating another over the head with a telephone just aren't particularly funny. This film would probably have worked better if it had just stuck to dry satirical humor, keeping the one hilarious exception of the impromptu after-the-big-bust party by the feds. Anyway, there are some twisty surprises here and there, not all of which are very believable, and it ties up a bit too easily at the end. Though American HUSTLE works well as light but meaningful entertainment, the fact that it just doesn't go as far and deep as it could have keeps it from being the rip-roaring success it might have been. Better plotting, more suspense, and sharper surprise elements could have won that Oscar.
All the same, Christian Bale (as not-so-bad-a-guy con artist Irving Rosenfeld), Amy Adams (as Rosenfeld's indispensable cohort Sydney Prosser), and Bradley Cooper (as self-serving FBI agent Richie DiMaso) give some nice performances here, with special kudos going to Jeremy Renner as Mayor/FBI target Carmine Polito.