American Hustle (2013) - 7 stars out of 10

American Hustle (2013) - 7 stars out of 10

I have some strong opinions on “American Hustle.”  In my eyes, this film had some extreme highs and some extreme lows.  First, Christian Bale’s acting is off the charts.  This character falls into that arrogant, aggressive, mean-spirited persona that the media has assigned to Bale’s life but the real acting finesse comes out in the tenderness that makes his character regretful and apologetic.  Most great acting performances display a subtle character transformation but Bale does the opposite - he has a hard shell until the end of the film when we get to see who his character is inside (even though we knew it was there all along).  That being said, he won’t win an Oscar for Best Actor but this is a very notable role on his resume.  Another highlight for me is Jeremy Renner as Mayor Carmine Polito.  He is such a likeable family man that you’ll actually agree with him for using political corruption in the best interests of New Jersey.  Although it may seem like a contradiction from comments that you will read later, I believe that the portrayal of the story is fantastic.  It does not hide the fact that many liberties are taken with the characters and events of the story (particularly by replacing the typical “The following is based on a true story” text at the beginning with “Some of this actually happened”), but each liberty enhances the thematic messages and entertainment value of the story.  Just like last year, Jennifer Lawrence lights up the screen with a quirky and lovable performance.  While I don’t think that the Academy will give her two Oscars in a row, her comedy is fantastic as we get to see her turn into a real person with emotions… before rapidly transforming back into a materialistic bimbo.  And who can resist a cameo by Robert DeNiro that perfectly fits him.  Unfortunately, the film isn’t all good.  While Amy Adams delivers a nice performance, she has also filled her “nudity quota” for her acting career, showing every angle of her skin without actually taking her clothes off.  The costumes in the film are amazing (and probably going to win an Oscar), particularly the men and Jennifer Lawrence, but are we really supposed to believe that any woman in the 70’s routinely showed that much skin for everyday occasions?  It actually began to annoy me after awhile.  I also was not a fan of Bradley Cooper.  Whereas his performance in “Silver Linings Playbook” showed a lot of finesse through his extreme mood swings, he was just annoying this time around.  Sure, we are supposed to progressively develop distaste for his character, but his performance just fell flat.  Finally, and the Academy will probably disagree with me on this one, the script is trash as it overuses the f-word from start to finish.  Any poignant scenes that require strong language to really heighten the sense of emotion are cheapened because profanity flows through this film like the Mississippi River.  There was also an awkward disparity between drama and comedy.  I found the scene where Cooper’s boss is recording his testimony to be hilarious but in the scheme of the story, should we really be laughing at this point?  There are a lot of moments when the film is amusing but it probably isn’t the right time.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this film.  The acting is strong and twist at the end is great.  The story is told in a way that is interesting and amusing but for me, the writers went too far and some of the pieces just did not fit the puzzle.