AMERICAN HUSTLE

Unlike Martin Scorsese’s one-note, 80’s inspired, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, David O. Russell’s AMERICAN HUSTLE delivers a stunningly layered and riotous send-up of a 70’s political and monetary farce that flies off the charts.

While Scorsese offers charmless takes on loathsome characters, Russell reveals women and men, equally corrupt, who give us the paradoxical pleasure of caring about them even as they seek to grab and run.

A brilliantly crafted script and a splendidly directed cast pull off one of the best films of the year. Why? They play farce with a straight face.

Christian Bale is nearly unrecognizable as Irving Rosenfeld, a local con artist with a glued on hairpiece and a dry cleaning business that manages to amass a vault of pricey but unclaimed items.  Irving declares that customers must have gotten drunk and totally forgotten where they left their silks and furs.   Oh, he also sells fake fine art.  Imagine that. 

Into his life slinks Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), a former stripper who seems to have totally forgotten her bra as well as her moral scruples.  Imagine that.  She’ll do anything to become someone other than who she is.  I mean was.  Bingo.  Irving strikes her as the perfect match. Two of a kind.  They’ll get rich and toss in hot sex to seal the deal.  Irving drapes her in unclaimed Halston’s and minks.

Sydney obligingly transforms herself into Lady Edith Greensly, a well-connected English woman with amazing financial connections. Together she and Irving set up a loan company that promises to deliver $50,000+ in funds to any desperate sucker willing to pay a $5,000 retainer up front.  Somehow the duo never manage to keep their part of the bargain.  But boy, do they ever get rich.  And the sex is great.  Imagine that.

Russell hints that things do not always turn out the way they seem.  An enticing understatement. Misguided Commerce and Lust now drive this delicious farce forward.

Enter desperate loan candidate Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) who in reality is an FBI agent.  He threatens to bust Irving and Lady Greensly unless they use their con artist skills to help him execute a plan to ensnare politically ambitions Carmine Polito, Mayor of Camden (Jeremy Renner, stylish in a grand pompadour), who is eager to generate work for his job-hungry voters of New Jersey.  

For that to happen, Polito will surely have to secure millions in tainted money.  It's the perfect scam.  DiMaso will make a highly publicized bust and receive career boosting kudos from his FBI boss. Yes?

Ah, but remember, we are enjoying a farce.  Enter a fake Arab sheikh who proposes to invest millions (provided by the FBI) in the casinos.  A mobster from Miami unexpectedly arrives (Robert De Niro) anxious to invest in East Coast gambling. Then there are the U.S. Congressmen who eagerly accept large bribes to grant the sheikh American citizenship to mask the mafia investment.  

A comic circus cuts loose. 

Speaking of loose, into this mayhem intrudes Irving’s wife, Rosalyn, unknown to mistress Lady Edith, who quickly proves she is definitely not a lady.  Oh the cat fights!  Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence channeling a wacky version of Judy Holiday ) develops a crush on a mafia hit man and talks too much which causes poor Irving to get seriously roughed up.  But the audience can't stop laughing.

Go see this film.  It's a perfect farce with a kick ass ending.  David O. Russell and team deliver a ludicrous and sophisticated black comedy that I’m confident will deserve the many awards coming its way.