Do The Hustle. American Hustle.

If this film were a person I imagine it would be preening itself in front of a full length mirror, taking selfies, whilst Van McCoy's 'Do The Hustle' plays on the turntable in the background. 

American Hustle is a conman “from the feet up” and the devil is in the details: the way the tan leather jacket fits just so, the length of the collars, the authentic wayfearers. People are going to notice when you enter the room because you're supercool, you're Tony Manero, you're Tony Montana, you're Tony Baretta. You've spent hours on your hair. The hair has to be perfect. People won't take you seriously unless you get the hair right. You tweak your locks once more and you're good to go. You can't play at the table with the big boys unless you've got confidence. You've got it and you know it. You're smarter and snappier than any of them as long as you keep telling yourself that. Now  turn back to the mirror and practice your Academy Awards acceptance speech.

 ...which is to say that American Hustle looks great, but is a bit of a bore. 

It's clearly an actors' movie. The stellar ensemble clearly love being in a faux Scorsese movie.  They strut around in slow motion and make big entrances to an array of aor hits. They get to do voice over narration and play people who are themselves trying on various personas. They have big emotional scenes together that they can sink their teeth into but it still lacks something. There's not much storytelling through action; we spend too much time in hotel rooms and offices. Despite being dialogue heavy it lacks quotable lines or Tarantino's ear for language or flair for making scenes come alive. It's feds vs cons but it's no 'Jackie Brown'. It's entertaining enough but it's no 'Boogie Nights'. It's not 'Goodfellas' or 'Casino'. It's not 'The Grifters'. Hell, it's not even as good as 'Blow'. It really, really wants to be all of these films rolled into one but it's not got enough smarts to do that but even so it still works really hard to convince you that this is something special. That's the hustle.
 

Christian Bale drops the growl, has a pot belly, plays with bad hair and makes himself unrecognisable to show that he's like really method man. Actually, he's great; it's his best work since 'American Psycho', but the character is monotone and hard to give a fuck about. Bradley Cooper does that manic talkingatyouathousandwordsaminute thing that he does in every single movie to show that he's crazy but vulnerable. Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence are the two best actresses currently working in Hollywood but their main purpose here is to forget to wear bras and look good in slinky dresses. They don't have many scenes together but when it happens it's like they're having a catfight for academy award nominations. They're both so good that you can almost ignore how hammy it all is.  Bob De Niro stares down the camera for his cameo as a Mafiosa. Jeremy Renner finally gets something to do other than point a bow and arrow at people. Everybody seems relieved to not be making a superhero movie.

The first scene of the movie is the best and you wait for the film to match it but it never does. The story is weak and thematically it's dull. The message is we deceive others and deceive ourselves because we all have to hustle our way through life but there's nothing within that to challenge you out of your comfort zone.  It's a 'con within a con movie' but it's not especially smart or interesting. There's no puzzle to solve.  If you strike 'American' from the title you're left with 'Hustle' and once you strip the fashions and the glitter and the big name stars away it does play like an overextended 70s set episode of the comfy BBC 'cons with a heart of gold' series 'Hustle'...but just not as much fun.

I'm being harsh. It's not a bad film by any means; just not the modern classic it so desperately wants to be acclaimed as. A whole lot of movie for very little story. Will probably win a bag of awards and then be forgotten about.