American Hustle

American Hustle writer/director David O Russell

Either David O Russell is the hottest Hollywood director on the planet, or those myopic voters at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences really need to get out a bit more.

If I was an actor I would be desperate to get cast in David O Russell’s next film. How desperate? Well, I wouldn’t think twice about turning myself into a walking skeleton or running around in a plastic bin liner in the name of art. That’s because Russell is becoming almost as prolific at piling up Academy Award nominations as the great Meryl Streep.

Russell’s latest movie, the crime drama American Hustle, is loosely based (“Some of this actually happened”) on the FBI’s Abscam sting operation of the late 70s and early 80s. But the real story is that it has 10 Oscar nominations, including best picture, best director and a clean sweep in the acting categories. That’s on top of last year’s eight Oscar nominations for Russell’s “bipolar romantic comedy” Silver Linings Playbook and seven for his 2010 boxing biopic The Fighter.

All of this might lead you think that either David O Russell is the hottest Hollywood director on the planet, or those myopic voters at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences really need to get out a bit more.

In American Hustle it’s the ever-adaptable Christian Bale who looks twice the man he was in The Fighter. He’s piled on 43 pounds and sports an embarrassing comb-over to play New Jersey dry cleaner-turned-con man Irving Rosenfeld. Look out for the can of Elnett hairspray enjoying a brief cameo in the opening scenes, as Bale shows off his newly acquired paunch, while assiduously covering his balding pate.

Irving and his mistress Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) have been doing quite nicely with a loan scam in which she poses as an English aristocrat to reel in gullible investors. But then Bradley Cooper’s cocky FBI agent Richie DiMaso catches up with the pair and forces them into an elaborate con, involving a fake Arab sheikh and a scheme to build casinos in Atlantic City. Irving and Sydney are just the bait to catch some much bigger fish, including a New Jersey Mayor played by Jeremy Renner.

I’d never heard anything about Abscam before I saw this movie, but at times it seems like a mere backdrop for other distracting subplots involving sexual jealousy and overweening ambition. Cooper’s coke-snorting DiMaso is a vain, corkscrew-permed ball of energy who alternates between sparring with his mild-mannered boss (played by Louis CK) and putting the moves on Sydney. Equally unstable is Irving’s young wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), who almost betrays him to her Mafia lover and has a nice sideline in blowing up kitchen appliances.

As a cinemagoer, I’ve rarely been impressed by movies that come garlanded with multiple Oscar nominations. James Cameron’s Titanic boasted 14 nominations (it won in 11 categories), but I still regard it as a titanic, iceberg-shaped cinematic turd. If American Hustle was a less high-profile production I’d be more inclined to downplay its flaws and simply enjoy the fact that it is a lip-glossed, star-studded slice of largely undemanding entertainment, showcasing some great 70s tunes. Plot-wise it’s not in the same league as The Sting, but it is less narcissistic than the tiresome Ocean’s Trilogy.

But with Lawrence and Cooper getting Oscar nominations for their wildly over-the-top roles here, you have to wonder what Russell was thinking when he cast them. I did enjoy their sparky, old-fashioned romantic partnership Silver Linings Playbook, though it was no masterpiece. In American Hustle it’s as though they’ve been ordered to “turn it up to eleven” in every scene. The result is a mood of sustained hysteria that unbalances the film and detracts from an affecting performance by Amy Adams. I think the voters at AMPAS have been conned.

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