American Hustle

We weren’t wrong about David O. Russel the first time. American Hustle wants to be a refreshing, engaging and vibrant gangster movie and manages it quite well. At times, it tries too hard, especially with the at times surprisingly and intentionally weird behaviour of some of the characters, but it never gets to the point of bothering me. The performances are superb without exception. It’s delivered as a comedy and I take it as such. This time Russel doesn’t try to unsuccessfully portray romantic relationships or social conflicts, which I take it as a plus. For me, good fun and satisfaction. (05/01/2014)

O. Russell annoys me immensely. His films are reminiscent of a showcase of clichés and conventions, and if all this worked well in Fighter, it changed from Silver Linings Playbook to empty glitz covered with an imitation of "something more". However, his mannerist preference for certain techniques and compositions is not even "nicely cheesy" and cool (exciting), but simply emptily self-serving. Completely in line with the never-ending "just enough so that you can't see much" show of Amy Adams's cleavage, which instead of excitement arouses, after a while, an inquisitive feeling about whether she is supposed to attract attention or distract the viewer. An absurdly rich selection of period hits, a showcase of idiotic hairstyles, dysfunctional parallel storylines and narrator voices, carried by Bale, who is already starting to forget that acting means more than periodically gaining and dropping 50 kilos. After The Wolf of Wall Street, this artificial attempt at an epic of deception and hypocrisy, folded into a would-be brazen and contemplative whole, feels even more unappealing. And the last Marty didn't get under my skin much. But at least I still have enough sense to recognize a hoax from the original. [50%] (22/01/2014)

Well, spank my ass and call me Charlie. A movie made by a hell of a director with actors that could fill up a hall of fame, but still the movie turns out bad. I can’t remember the last time I felt so terribly disappointed. Sure, I did see the reviews here, but I kept telling myself that people simply didn’t like some aspect of the movie. But what I didn’t expect is that the aspect was the entire movie – literally all of it. I mean everything about the movie is bad. Let me start from the beginning. The screenplay is absolutely terrible. This must have been written by some lunatic who paid to have his screenplay made into a movie with A-list actors, or I don’t know what else to think. It’s a mixture of boredom, greyness and lack of interest… it’s absolutely terrible and it won’t keep you entertained even at the end. And that leads to the individual characters, the setting, the non-existent humor. All of it. Literally. The two stars are actually quite a good rating as this is a joke gone bad rather than any kind of a hustle. Compared to other movies in a similar vein, this is incredibly sub-par. (06/02/2014)

A retro farce with great costumes that nonetheless unfolds at a sluggish pace and is full of actors showing off unnecessarily. I consider American Hustle far from masterfully directed. On the contrary, at such a slow pace, it is striking that the ambitious plot disintegrates in the tangle of character motivations that got out of hand. But would you do any better if there was a scantily clad Amy Adams prancing around your set? The acting performances are fantastic, however. Christian Bale tries hard, but Jennifer Lawrence turns in the best performance here. Amy Adams is super-hot (let’s be honest – would you be able to restrain yourself in the bathroom scene?) and the icing on the cake is the unexpected Mr. “XY” from Miami in the best mafia role in recent memory. With his appearance, the pace picks up a little. The nomination for best film and director was probably secured by Bale’s necklace. (28/01/2014)

A little bit too overcomplicated, definitely. But David O. Russell played with every little detail and chose great actors for the main roles. Bale is great in an untraditional (obese) role, but the fact that it’s good is thanks to the team work where everybody does they are meant to and the result speaks for itself. It’s not Oscar material, but it’s still a great fun without trying too much, jokes firing away throughout the whole movie. Incredible costumes. (02/03/2014)