Ralph's Movie Reviews: AMERICAN HUSTLE

Saturday, December 21, 2013

AMERICAN HUSTLE

Crime drama

F.Y.I.

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the FBI sting operation code named Abscam targeted corruption of elected officials.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS

Christian Bale: con man Irving Rosenfeld

Bradley Cooper: FBI agent Richard “Richie” DiMaso

Amy Adams: Irving’s partner Sydney Prosser

Louis CK: Richie’s boss Stoddard Thomsen

Jeremy Renner: Camden NJ Mayor Carmine Polito

Elisabeth Rohm: Carmine’s wife Dolly

Jennifer Lawrence: Irving’s wife Rosalyn

Robert De Niro: Mob guy Victor Tellegio

REVIEW

Loosely based on the FBI investigation this is one terrific movie. Perhaps a tad too long at 2 hours and 18 minutes it is fast-paced, riveting and wholly entertaining. Production values are top notch with great attention to period detail. The script mostly rings true and is replete with humorous moments.

The performances are all excellent ranging from Academy Award exceptional-type (Bale, Adams, Cooper, Lawrence) to strong believable characters (Renner, Rohm, DeNiro). One more thing: any movie about a con man is bound to have more than a few plot twists: this one does not disappoint.

CLASSIFICATION

for pervasive language, some sexual content and brief violence.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.