MovieNotes: American Hustle

Movie: American Hustle

*ing: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner

Director: David O Russell

Language: English

Genre: Biopic (based on true events), Crime

Preamble

• The Trailer releases, I check the star cast - I want to see this.
• The Movie releases, the reviews come up - I have to see this.
• The Award season begins - I have to definitely see this.

Ergo I saw the film.

Basic Premise

A pair of con artists are blackmailed into conducting a con operation on behalf of the government agencies. The end results are interesting to say the least.

After all, as the tagline itself says - "Everyone Hustles to Survive"

Movie Notes

• "Some of this actually happened" - A fantastic opening credit to keep you further hooked, in the unlikely event of you not having already been hooked on.
• Best Scene - Opening scenes  of a balding man spending time to strategically brush his hair to ensure that no spot is visible. Brilliantly enacted by Christian Bale.
• The movie moves at its own pace. Like the opening shot, takes its time to describe the characters. The characters are carefully built up as the story picks them along. Sometimes the pace seems dreary but it also keeps a suspense of something big about to happen.
• The patience for enduring the slow buildup is the reward in the form of the final twist in the tale. You feel that there is a twist in the game, yet when it came forth, you still got surprised. 
• For different reasons the climax reminded me of (a) The Shawshank Redemption (for the buildup), and (b) the character of Sirius Black in Harry Potter (mentioned in passing in Book 1 and then going onto become a major character in Book 3)
• Robert de Niro comes in for one scene. Yes, he is the Godfather.
• Acting wise Jennifer Lawrence doesn't get much screen time but stands out  even in this cast.
• One look at Christian Bale as Irving Rosenfeld and you would be hard pressed to imagine that this very same actor was playing the Batman barely two years back. Forget his acting (which is great, by the way) don't think there are many actors who make this much effort to get into the physique of the character.
• Another movie which captures the 70s life style. For some reason I feel that the 70s had the most distinct look among all the decades gone by.
• Most annoying part of the film - How do they keep mispronouncing "Sheikh" as "The sheekh". If I was the sheekh I would have stopped doing business with these fellows for just this very reason.

Rating - 9/10. The kind of film which slowly grows on you and then finally entraps you. Overall a great watch.

Previously on MovieNotes - Rush