Overrated pool hall drama has seen better days

Rating: 4/10 (15 July 2012)

'The Hustler' is one of those films that shows its age. What seemed so dramatic back then, is really old hat now. Isn't Paul Newman's character 'Fast Eddie' rather obvious and one dimensional? We find out so little about him except for the fact that he's obsessed with making money and being 'top dog' in the seedy world he inhabits. This goes on ad infinitum. And of course, Sarah Packard, the wounded but insightful woman who attempts to steer Eddie away from his pointless existence, fails to make an impression on him until it's too late.
I don't like films about 'sad sacks'. I've made this point in countless number of my reviews. It's as though the screenwriter is crying out for recognition: 'you see, I'm really a genius for recognizing just how down and out my characters are.' We're all supposed to experience some kind of catharsis when there's a moment of insight. But the problem is that there's so little to the characters to begin with. Yes we 'get it' that Fast Eddie is a loser and that when he beats Minnesota Fats at the end, it's a pyrrhic victory since Sarah is now dead (by her own hands) and Bert points out that Eddie won't be playing in anymore high stakes pool games ever again. When a character's transformation is so predictable, as it is here with Eddie's 'punishment' for his lack of empathy and general cluelessness, why heap accolade upon accolade on a screenplay that doesn't deserve it?
Further evidence of the screenwriters' ineptitude is the treatment of the antagonist, Bert, played by George C. Scott. Is there a more unlikeable antagonist than this? There's really nothing good about him from the '75% stake' to his wretched treatment of poor Sarah. The word 'villain' is rubber stamped over his face from the beginning and it shows a complete misunderstanding of what psychopaths are like in the real world. In short, they're charming and likable—the exact opposite the way Bert is depicted here. To their credit, Robert Rossen (who wrote the novel the film is based on) and the adapter, Sidney Carroll, manage to have the bad guys win out in the end, but their antagonist is so devoid of charm, that we can hardly believe any of it. Pull out your Sopranos DVDs if you want some verisimilitude.
Plot-wise, 'The Hustler' is a slow-moving affair. There's the long drawn-out pool hall 'battle' between Newman and Jackie Gleason, who has little to do except hit a few balls around on a pool table. Then there's a lot of cuddling between Newman and Piper Laurie as Sarah followed by the big 'action' scene, where Eddie gets his thumbs broken by the local riff-raff. Newman ends up winning against a high-society billiards player and he's back playing against Minnesota Fats. Oh yes, I forgot about the suicide scene where Sarah can't take it anymore.
'The Hustler', shot in black and white, has some decent cinematography and acting, despite the hokey script. As a piece of film history, it's worth seeing once but please don't try and convince me this is some kind of masterpiece. I can assure you that Roger Ebert's pronouncement that this film will grow in your "memories" is just another example of how wrong he often is in his evaluation of the top films that are out there.