"Anything can be great... if he knows what he's doing and why"

Rating: 10/10 (18 April 2015)

I almost don't know where to begin with Robert Rossen's The Hustler, about the ups and downs (mostly downs) for "Fast" Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) as he faces off against Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleeson), meets and falls in love with a "lame" girl (Piper Laurie), and gets attached to a gambler/manager (Scott) who may run him ragged. The simplest thing is that this is a cool, expressive, massively engaging drama that treats its audience like they're adults. The script not only never fails the actors, but Rossen and his co-writer give them scene after scene to showcase pain and anguish and trying to find a way through the dark corners of life... but also that RUSH for going for "it" - the thrill of the game, win or lose.
Paul Newman is electrifying, no two ways about it - and one can firmly argue, as I might, his finest work on screen. I have to seriously wonder if one extra speech, which was apparently cut though I couldn't tell from where, would've bumped him up to full Oscar status (this was by the way) where Scott's animosity to the AMPAS began with his loss to Riff from West Side Story) - and the main cast is uniformly excellent.
But I'm tempted to say that Piper Laurie may be my favorite performance of the bunch. Sarah has been used and doesn't always like that, but she is always in constant conflict about it; amid the trials Eddie goes through, she seems to go through her own, while falling in serious, non-kidding love with this guy. She has all of the layers to play here, and there are a few moments where I wondered if it would become less a "Sports" movie (and this is as much a sports movie as Raging Bull, Jake LaMotta connection) than Days of Wine and Roses - and this is, if "About" anything, addiction and personality disorders. She makes such a tormented character feel raw and real and vulnerable and strong and charming and just everything that you want out of a movie character. Her final scene is also shocking, though I still didn't expect what would happen next.
And Jackie Gleeson. I half expected him at one or two points, following a Fast Eddie clip, to go "We got a Weisenheimer, Alice!" He was part of the 'coolness' of this picture of me, super tough, possibly dangerous but, in his way, kind of like that old-bad*ss knight (or gunslinger, and when Eddie re-enters the bar for the climax it has that feel too of a saloon in the Old West) who gets challenged and goes toe-to-toe with another upstart knight or something.
George C. Scott... When he exclaims in that final scene "You owe me MONEY!" I let out a laugh, not as it was funny exactly but it was so unexpected and charged. He the tough, a-hole Capitalistic shark of the movie, as Eddie (yes even as Newman was 35 when this was made) is young with that go-gettem spirit but with heart and all that jazz. Scott plays this guy as someone who, in other hands, could be the hammy villain of the movie, whereas with him he also makes him almost a tragic character. Almost.
Oh, and the filmmaking is crisp and innovative in parts - those montages, so captivating - and knowing, along with Dede Allen, when to leave the camera going without a cut, or to keep the cuts smooth and good for a conversation (Sarah's breakdown at the party the former, when she and Eddie meet at the bar the latter).
Bottom line, a sort of "guy" movie that owes more to film-noir than sport movie clichés. I'm not sure what I was expecting - the Color of Money is the good but still, it-can't-be-helped, inferior follow-up - but I got a minor masterpiece.