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Totally opposite opinion here. I couldn't tell if the problem was because of source material (I.e. Adhering to a specific take on a work itself loosely based on real events) but this was a mess somehow of both plot holes and contrivances. Great performances, excellent costume design/production, but otherwise a huge let down. I would not recommend that anyone see this. Not in lieu of some of the better fare out right now, anyway.
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Dec 26, 2013 02:09
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DarkSol posted:Can you go further on this? I just got back from seeing it. Aside from Bradley Cooper playing, well, Bradley Cooper in this film, I think it was extremely well done and everything wrapped up at the end very neatly. Agreed on Bradley Cooper being distractingly bad for this role. Not a bad technical performance - same goes for everyone, really good performances -, just...ugh, I honestly can't articulate it any better than you did. Every time he was on screen I wished he would just go away or get shot or something. Please excuse all of the black bars below. I wanted to use a lot of specific examples and err on the side of not spoiling plot points. Generally speaking, a lot of my dissatisfaction comes from a pretty long list of "wait a minute..." moments after leaving the theater. Not the least of which is the plot hole that the entire instigating premise of this movie is that Bradley Cooper has Amy Adams dead to rights on fraud and impersonation, presumably after having done a relatively competent investigation, but then later on is just utterly loving flabbergasted that SHE ISN'T ACTUALLY BRITISH AND IS USING AN ALIAS. I mean what the hell. That doesn't make any goddamn sense. As to plot contrivances, for example, the ending was pure deus ex machina. Oh, it turns out that the lawyer was actually some other guy with a funny job. I see, you tricked us!. It's one thing to have a twist arise from clues that were inevitably missed by characters and maybe slipped past an intelligent viewer. But it's another to not have those clues entirely. Without them, the movie has no claim to being clever, which is an accolade I've seen plastered all over it by reviews. Ocean's 13 was smarter than this movie when it came to setting up and consummating its cons. Then there were moments of the plot that just stretched the limits of my suspension of disbelief (which is tough for a historical drama not about vampire hunters). Bradley Cooper not only being allowed to sit in on, but able to participate in and end the deposition of the boss he had just very seriously battered and threatened with a weapon, receiving virtually no reprimand whatsoever? I would be shocked to find out if this is one of the modicums of truth in this film. Even if it was, it's a case of fact being stranger than fiction, and contributed to the mess. I loved that Louis CK had something to do in this movie, but jesus. But I get that David O Russell is a character guy, not a plot guy. That's fine. There was nothing particularly intricate about the story of Silver Linings Playbook, for example. But the characters in that film had believable motivations. Although unpredictable and unhinged, they still acted in ways consistent with those motivations, and generally followed an emotionally credible pattern of growth. American Hustle missed that mark on that pretty badly. Characters acted in ways that weren't internally consistent, that were exceedingly mercurial in their motivations, and generally substituted quirks and espousals for genuine development. The worst offender here was Jeremy Renner. We know he is a guy who loves the people of New Jersey because he said so about a billion times. And fine, I'll take his characterization as an upstanding, pragmatic public servant at face value. But what exactly turned him from the guy who said 'No thanks!' to a briefcase from a stranger to paying off Congressmen at the behest of the mob? True story or not, that's a serious about face that made no sense for the character. Either I missed that the whole movie is a treatise on pathologically lying retards bumbling their way through history, or there are some really debilitating problems here. Because it definitely didn't work as the "smart-but-flawed manipulators on both sides of the law finding themselves increasingly in over their heads" movie I was sold in the trailers. I also found the style and 70s glitz to more of a liability than an asset. But I guess that's probably my most subjective criticism. What the hell was the point of that three-minute jaunt into not-Studio 54 anyway? It was already made pretty clear that Cooper and Adams were careening towards each other without it. Was it just so they could do a disco scene and have R-rated sexy moments in the bathroom (plus ADR jokes)? All that, plus a criminally underutilized De Niro. Felt like barely more than a cameo. Maybe I should've just gone to see Madea instead. edit: All actresses named Amy are not the same bam thwok fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Dec 26, 2013 |
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Dec 26, 2013 22:07
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Dusseldorf posted:Well it was an uncredited cameo, I agree that it was a high point in the film. That's surprising, given how important his character was to the third act. And another thing! It doesn't make any loving sense that in the end, we'd find out that De Niro was suddenly cool with being conned by, and then nearly indicted because of Bale and Adams. In the less than ten lines of dialogue he had, the most important thing he said was that he would take it as a sign of disrespect and there would be deadly consequences if anything about the deal wasn't above board. I mean, that was the entire point of his character. This was the first time it looked like the stakes are high enough to actually care, and they just hand-wave it away with one line from that guy who has a perfectly nice other side of his face? I should've just seen Frozen. bam thwok fucked around with this message at 08:47 on Dec 28, 2013 |
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Dec 26, 2013 22:32
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DarkSol posted:You know, as I was asking my parents about this same thing, but I couldn't remember if Amy Smart was using her accent or not during the initial interrogation or not. If she was, then it dovetails in nicely with her statement about how she had all of her paperwork changed up to her birth to give the Edith character legitimacy. If she wasn't, remember, Bradley Cooper's character was crushing on Amy Smart, and was willing to semi-bend the rules during that same scene. That and he was so happy to bust them, so far stuck up his own rear end about how big he "was" and the ever expanding scope of the investigation, he may have just plain forgot that she was conning everyone with the accent. Okay, well if we accept that the answer here is either stupendously blissful ignorance or gross incompetence, then this is another example of testing the limits of my suspension of disbelief rather than a plot hole, and is no less offensive to my sensibilities. quote:I never felt that the ending was pure deus ex machina as Bale and Smart's characters were established to be confidence tricksters. They even say that while Bale's character was being threatened by the mobster and his goon, he came up with the con to practically gently caress the feds and Bradley Cooper's character over. Why would they need to hint it at it, when they practically bludgeon you upside the head that it was a con? Remember when Bale went to Jeremy Renner's house? Bale pleads with him to hear out what the plan was. What happened was the plan! "Conner's gonna con" and a tearful insistence that there is a plan doesn't save this from being half-baked, even as Bale describes it needing to be "the best they've ever done". That was it? That was the best con in this movie? That didn't come with an 'ooooh' or 'aha! you got him good!' moment for me. Again, I feel like this whole enterprise had was built up to be smarter in a way that it never lived up to. I want to believe that there is a cleverer, more tightly-plotted version of this movie hiding in there somewhere if you can just filter out the tangents and garishness. That might be my bias for more conventional story-telling showing, but it was deeply unimpressive. quote:I feel like this is where Bradley Cooper's character first fucks up. He's too eager to make the bust and is trying to force the money on Renner's character. However, I don't think they ever established that Renner was upstanding. While he gave off the outward appearance of a wholesome, white-bread American, there were little signs that you may have missed that showed he had his flaws. Like wiping his hand and slightly grimacing after shaking hands with a black man. He was a state assemblyman and a mayor, but he also knew that you had to grease the right palms to get the job done. I took his casual, Jeresy-fied racism to just be another concession to the era rather than a character flaw. His Brady Bunch family (they even stood on the stairs in a row) was picturesque, and he adopted an inner city black kid. If there was one character in this film meant to defy Bale's suggestion that the world is gray, not black-and-white, it's this guy. His role was to be an earnest white-knight victim; the first mark of Bale's that he couldn't describe as a desperate bad guy. His conscience incarnate, who even in drunken moments of intimate confidence would inevitably talk about the good things he could do for his constituents. This character's behavior in the third act made no sense to me at all. quote:I felt that this part was a good counterpoint to Bale and Lawrence finally semi-enjoying each others' company. Smart was feeling left out and was probably either playing Cooper up, or was reacting out of spite towards Bale. While Bale and Lawrence were acting all classy with Renner, Cooper and Smart went to a "trashy" nightclub. It also really accentuated how hyper and how out of control Cooper's character was with the whole situation. It took Amy Smart to pretty much talk him down from almost having sex in the stall. Difference of opinion then. I thought it was superfluous.
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Dec 26, 2013 23:46
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DarkSol posted:Interesting sidenote, the person that Rosalyn was based off of killed herself in 1982. I wonder if the neckbrace was foreshadowing that. Or was it implied that Pete was abusing her? Or am I reading more into it than I should and it was really just a car accident? I interpreted that to signify that her character had not changed, and remained a clutzy agent of chaos. Another part of the "things are returned to normal, but with our protagonist slightly better off" ending.
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Dec 26, 2013 23:57
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American Hustle had all the trappings of a masterful film: Trunk shots borrowed from Tarantino, the legend himself, De Niro, as the big bad mob boss, the period stylings of Argo, the promise of titillating sex, corrupting drugs, and an intricate miasma of "what's the con and what isn't?" hanging over the characters' heads. But all of those are subverted. The trunk shot reveals a tchotchke. De Niro has less than 5 minutes of screen time, and his threat miraculously evaporates. The over-the-top production design serves as a distraction and repulses us rather than invites us into its ambiance. As best as I can recall, for a movie that looked to be as sexy and drug-addled as this one, no one has any actual sex (and the subject is consistently avoided or balked at; in the flashback to Sydney's stripper days, her nipples are fully covered. Rosenfeld's son is only his by adoption, removing even the implication of him having sex. Syndey delays and rebuffs DiMaso's advances until the last possible PG-13 moment [and quickly turns violent when it crosses that threshold]), and aside from DiMaso quietly snorting a pinch of coke/uppers and then doing nothing in particular besides politely stand around, the most commonly used drug was heart medication, and its consequences were nil. And the cons/lies are appallingly superficial, never with more than one layer, and never lasting particularly long - conceived and planned unseen between cuts. The metaphor of the forger as the true master is an obvious one, but it does not do a particularly good job of describing the characters. What does, however, is the very first scene of the movie when Rosenfeld, with an expert, practiced routine, ornately styles his comeover only to be immediately exposed by DiMaso. The aspirations and actions of these characters to present themselves masterfully as something they are not is laughably bad. Rosenfeld, from the get go, looks like the smarmiest, least trust-worthy man in history, and everyone seems to have this impression of him right away. Sydney's British accent is preposterously bad -an imitation of what a posh English lady might sound like that only a former stripper from Albuquerque could devise. DiMaso is Mr. Magoo-like in his lack of prowess in law enforcement, and every single one of his schemes or ideas is immediately identified as pathetically dumb by those around him. And yet, the plot is contrived such that every other character plays along with them each step of the way, even their adversaries as they defy their own instincts with only the flimsiest of reassurances. But more damning than that, the audience has no choice but to play along, too. They are forced to accept and tolerate the garish production, the frankly baffling actions of characters that constantly contradict themselves, jarring switches in voice-over perspective, indulgent shots borrowed from other directors, Bradley Cooper with a perm, the length, and logic-defying plot developments, lest they have to admit that what they're watching isn't masterful at all, but a forgery. Scorsese this is not. His movie is in the theater two doors down. I think this matter of projection and boxing in, to detriment, is an apt commentary on the audience's and critics' relationship with the film more so than within the film itself. There is a lot of projection going on w/r/t implied depth and layered duplicity in character's actions and lines than what actually exists. Whether this was intentional, I'm not sure, but it would certainly make me feel better about about my misgivings on the plot, some perplexing character behavior, and generally a film which stretches the limits of credulity. And maybe this was just my experience, but I think at some level people understand that this film is deeply flawed, and wool is being pulled over their eyes. In the past I've gone to the theater to see other films - that earned far less than the unanimous praise being heaped by critics on this one - solicit pretty vigorous applause, where the audience will turn to each other and say "wow, that was great". This was not one of those occasions. Packed theater on Christmas day, and it only roused a polite smattering of applause, with a much more muted ad resigned mood. Resigned to accept that we had just seen a work of art drenched in accolades, and that if our visceral reaction to it was of disappointed befuddlement, well, surely the critics know better than we do. And maybe getting people to buy into that is the only one of David O Russell's cons that actually felt unexpected. Therein lies the true American Hustle - that a giant mess of a movie with all the right names attached to it, opening on the right day, with a flashy trailer and a leaked video of Jennifer Lawrence making out with Amy Adams, can snowball its echo-chamber of praise into a nice box office and awards season take before anyone takes notice of what's really going on beneath the surface. I should've just gone to see Saving Mr. Banks. bam thwok fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 22:30
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at the date posted:American Hustle was cool as hell and a very good movie, IMO way better than The Hobbit: The Desalination of Smaug or w/e. Also there was at least one sex scene with at least two frames of full-on nipple so I don't know what that nerd up above me is on about. I must have fallen asleep during it and dreamt about dragons instead
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Dec 27, 2013 23:28
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Jonny Angel posted:My new goal in this thread is to post correct opinions repeatedly and force you to make enough posts that you run out of currently-in-theaters films to do this with. Once you've exhausted all current wide releases to see instead, you will be forced to admit you are wrong about American Hustle. Something something, Hunger Games
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Dec 28, 2013 08:43
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Seedge posted:This strongly reminded me off the BBC TV series Hustle, and I thought it was great. It was clear how it was going to end, but getting there was fun. This movie wasn't half as a clever as a even a bad episode of that show. The show was also firmly tongue-in-cheek with lots of winking and nodding to the audience. More of a "We're having a rollicking farce of a time" versus "WE ARE SERIOUS ACTORS WATCH AS WE GAIN WEIGHT AND CRY AREN'T WE SOOOO OVER THE TOP?".
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Jan 19, 2014 21:34
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