Newman and Scott are phenomenal

Rating: 9/10 (7 June 2018)

The Hustler is such a solid movie that in which i have trouble seeing any weakness in conventional cinema rating aspects ( Acting, screenplay, cinematography, music etc ) resulting in a near flawless film that is further enhanced by its amazing casting.
What could have been a movie about merely playing pool has turned into a study on 'character' and capitalism. 'Fast' Eddie Felson ( Paul Newman ) seems to hopelessly want to be the best, and doesn't know when to quit even when ahead a significant amount, because he needs to have the satisfaction in his mind of beating Minnesota Fats ( Jackie Gleason ) until he quits. Charlie ( Myron McCormick ), his partner, symbolizes the sane and logical part of Eddie, that one should quit when ahead, and not continue to lose it all again. When Eddie eventually dismisses Charlie, his last hold on controlling his self destructive nature disappears, and it is only later when met with Bert Gordon ( George C. Scott ) that this 'hold' returns to Eddie. It is a great character study on how Eddie, the arrogant talented 'born loser' turns into the epitome of a 'winner' through a long series of relatable and emotional events that occur.
Newman is simply incredible as usual, and he seems to understand his character like no other. His entire monologue about being called a born loser with Sarah, his fantastic facial acting, his desperate drunken mannerisms, it all sums up in that he IS basically Eddie Felson. Jackie Gleason is great as Minnesota Fats, and Piper Laurie as Sarah Packard. But apart from Newman the other true star has to be George C. Scott, whose character symbolizes greed as the true capitalist that seeks only money and doesn't seem to care about anything at all along the way. ( As Eddie says to him, 'You're dead inside' ) Scott's energetic acting, head up tilting mannerisms to show how much above everyone else he feels he is, fast manner of speaking and this arrogant kind of self control result in a phenomenal performance and everytime these actors come on the screen it results in fantastic scenes.
The acting is further enhanced by a fantastic screenplay so the dialogue said by these great actors never go to waste. As stated before the dialogue between Eddie & Sarah is so key to understanding his character perfectly for the audience, and it delivered in such an absorbing way by Newman. The dialogue in the final scene, and generally any scene in which Newman and Scott speak to eachother. The cinematography is world class and captures the 60s feel of the film like no other, which is also due to the fantastic Jazz score by Kenyon Hopkins. The pool games themselves are set up great with a lot of innovative shots of the audience's reactions pictured over the pool shots themselves, and a lot of the shots were apparantly made by Gleason and Newman themselves, with the occasional intervention of Willie Mosconi ( Reportedly one of the greatest pool players of all time ).
It all results in a masterpiece of character development, that seems to be near flawless and covers all the angles of the aspects that make a movie great.