I try not to get too hyped from trailers (I'm still going into The Wolf of Wall Street cautiously optimistic), the meticulous releases in advance of American Hustle only further built up my interest. With my enjoyment of David O. Russell's last two films, the terrific cast assembled for this film, and the excellent music choices in both of the movie's trailers in tow, I went into this hoping it could live up to at least a fraction of my anticipation.
Man, oh, man, though, is this a fun movie. A well-made, well-acted movie with great directorial stylistic flair, but a fun movie, too. All three of the film's main characters are continually interesting and are played with defined, engaging identities. Christian Bale is great as Irving Rosenfeld, a role in which his commitment to living in the character's skin (in this case, a noticeable gut and a combover) buries the actor within the character. I like Amy Adams' character as she's written (a woman so desperate to escape her identity that she creates a new person with her own motives and thoughts separate from the original) better than how it's executed, with a weak, fluctuating British accent that would have realistically been noticed extremely early in the film. (Hey, movies in general: Can we give the weirdly distracting British accents a rest? Between this and Elysium [which, OK, featured a fake British accent 100x worse than this one], I'm just about fed up with its use altogether.)
But, once again, Bradley Cooper proves to be the strongest link in an already strong cast. Having now seen Silver Linings Playbook after really taking a liking to his role in The Place Beyond the Pines, I applaud his ability (when paired with the right directors) to take characters into a realm that can be more relatable or exciting than other actors. This is certainly a case for the latter, as there's something oddly intriguing in his character's unorthodox courses of action even as he lets his anger get the better of him. For another actor, it may have resulted in a grating performance, but there's something weirdly fascinating in Cooper's progressive bullying of his superior (Louis C.K. in a straight-man role, whose interactions with Cooper provide a good deal of the film's highlights).
Elsewhere, Jeremy Renner is merely passable, serving as simply a plot device by the film's conclusion. Most interesting is Jennifer Lawrence's supporting role as Rosenfeld's estranged wife, whose erratic, unpredictable behavior out-crazies all three main characters combined. However, despite a scene in which she flaunts all of her passive-aggressive insanity like nothing, she ultimately just becomes a wrench thrown into the plot to generate conflict.
Though there's much more to discuss casting-wise, something should be said of the film's structural and stylistic resemblances. Plenty of comparisons have already been made to Goodfellas (which are made explicit through the laying out of character background via narration and in media res opening), but I feel that this film is somewhat of a love letter to The Sting. The professions of Bale and Adams's characters, as well as the central conflict of the film seem to hark back to that film in ways that struck me as less-than-accidental. But, hey, that might just be me and brain's odd means of tangential connection.
I'm not sure where American Hustle currently stands on my mental tracking of the year's films, or even within David O. Russell's oeuvre, but I found what I really liked about the film to outweigh any stray thoughts otherwise (the less said about the "Live or Let Die" sequence, the better). Every little interesting aspect or character tic within the film made the runtime a breezy, fun experience that I'd gladly watch again. If nothing else, I'll certainly be thinking fondly about the film a lot over the next few days.
