Review: American Hustle

American Hustle is as swaggering as its charismatic characters. David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter, I Heart Huckabees) has dared to mix crime caper, the mafia and comedy in this lavish production, with a slew of ridiculous characters all playing each other in a desperate bid for personal supremacy. Loosely based on the F.B.I.’s famous Abscam sting operation that targeted public corruption in the 1970s and ’80s, we focus on a braggadocio con-artist couple who are forced to help the feds bring down the big politicians whose actions are ‘ruining America’. American Hustle has been compared to The Sting and Goodfellas. From its hustling flashbacks and confidence tricks to its Henry Hill voiceovers and retro style, American Hustle is exactly that.

Aesthetically flawless, the clothing and makeup departments must have worked in overdrive (‘Another metre on those flares!’ ‘Skin another dog: we need more fur!’). American Hustle is a visual delight – a Savile Row LSD nightmare of ’70s sartorial chutzpah. The complex hairstyles (comb overs, pompadours, rollers, wigs) are a fitting metaphor for the characters, who carefully conceal the ugly reality with risible charade. The devastating soundtrack, of brassy Duke Ellington, strutting Tom Jones and bassy disco, whips up a perfect aural accompaniment of bold hedonism and flash class. It all makes for a thrilling watch.

The actual plot is surprisingly simple: various characters on a collision course of conniving conning. I was expecting more twists and turns that didn’t materialise, which means that the characters are by far the most important element. The film’s strength undoubtedly lies in the acting, which is pure perfection. Christian Bale (The Fighter) dominates the screen as the overweight, balding but convincingly charismatic conman Irving Rosenfeld. The mercurial performance straddles loveable rogue and thieving so-and-so. Amy Adams (The Fighter), Irving’s partner-in-crime, is unsettlingly credible as a perpetually-reinventing borderline sociopath: her fake British accent starts to muddle with her American one as she falls too deeply into her role-playing. Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook) plays ambitious F.B.I. agent Ritchie DiMaso with hyperactive enthusiasm. This irrepressible performance is another which proves that Cooper isn’t simply a romcom support. Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), one of Hollywood’s most talented young actors, is Irving’s unstable wife, who regularly sabotages plans and sets fire to a good number of household objects. Lawrence also manages to be the funniest of the main cast. Jeremy Renner, new to the Russell canon, is in more of a supporting role, but is nonetheless solid as a sleazily slick but well-intentioned Italian-American politician. Also watch out for a surprising star guest appearance.

What the audience might not expect is the comedy, for the film is as much that as it is drama or crime. American Hustle is incredibly funny, thanks to the actors’ brilliant comic touches, from their ridiculous actions to petty squabbling during high-octane action. Russell has even cast comedian Louis C.K. as a spendthrift cop who incessantly starts, but never finishes, a random story about ice-fishing. It works almost like a sitcom, with the cast weaving in and out of each other in neurotic hilarity, and it’s a lot funnier than Friends.

Distrust abounds in this society, trapped somewhere between love and hate, admiration and contempt. They play each other and that is their problem: life is a desperate attempt to attain the shimmering mirage of The American Dream. The title is thus perfect for a critique of ego-centric greed and boundless ambition which dominate today’s political and economic headlines.

American Hustle is less straightforward than it seems. The tempo, the humour, who the bad guys are and who you should root for all elude simplicity. I’m not too sure what kind of a film it really is: is it any more than superficial fun? I believe so, because it is so effortlessly entertaining that you don’t realise what a thoughtful study of humans and their motivations it really is. A dry statement precedes the movie, saying ‘a lot of this actually happened’: American Hustle is as dazzlingly deceptive as the characters themselves.

Review: Nebraska

Semi-senile old man Woody (Bruce Dern) and his nice-guy son David (Will Forte) travel across the Midwest to collect a sweepstakes prize that doesn’t exist. Nebraska is, quite simply, a road movie.

Woody Grant, whose neck is completely covered in beard hair, is a laconic old git with a history of alcoholism and family neglect. Prone to delusion, the cantankerous fool is tricked by a cheap marketing flyer into believing that he has won a million dollars. Nothing will prevent him from trying to walk 750 miles to collect the big bucks himself, so his son eventually acts as chauffer. He knows it’s a delusion, but sees an opportunity to connect with his old man who loved the sauce more than his boys. Predictably, over the course of the film this does happen, as an inebriated accident force the pair to stay at Woody’s hometown and a family reunion is organised. David learns more about his distant father – how he used to be generous and popular, and had a traumatic war experience.

There is nothing wildly novel about Nebraska. From the opening black-and-white film footage of railroad tracks we know that this is a road movie: Paris, Texas; It Happened One Night; Little Miss Sunshine. Stagnant shots of fields, dilapidated barns and forgotten diners establish a fading American landscape as the set. The viewing experience is much like watching drizzle for an afternoon – depressing. There is little music, sparse dialogue, and silent family get-togethers. We feel ourselves being sucked into the world of people who have given up joy in their monotonous lives. Their relationships have crumbled, they ponder lost machinery, and they wear fleeces. Nebraska draws you in to where you don’t want to be.

Of course, the dough isn’t really important – the prize could have been a budgerigar because we know that it is non-existent, and maybe Woody does as well. Where Nebraska really packs a punch is in the emotion department. An irredeemably dislikeable Scrooge tenders pathetically as he looks around his old house, in rooms where he grew up and his siblings died. Understanding his past allows his family to understand his present. The relationships are important to us because, by the end, we care. This, I believe, is due to the acting.

Bruce Dern, a man of mixed career recognition, uses all his melancholy abilities to portray this forlorn old timer who treads precariously between sympathetic and punchable. Also worthy of mention is Will Forte, whose dependable presence allows the relationship to take off. His delivery seems strange though – the talking pace, high-rise terminals and post-speech pauses are straight out of a generic U.S. comedy (Forte was in Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock and American Dad). Similarly, Woody’s wife Kate (June Squibb) is almost a stand-up. But this comedic element serves Nebraska well. Far from undermining the seriousness, the black humour prevents any saccharine sentimentality. The cynical observations enhance the feeling that the film knows what and where it is, as well as making it enjoyable. I challenge you not to chuckle at the fat, goateed hick losers who sit around all day laughing at others’ stupidity, or Woody’s identical brothers who occasionally mutter to each other about broken cars.

It is also a neat study of small-town America. We see the drawbacks: bored retirees watching traffic; obese redneck ex-cons sneering in camouflage; a Bad Day at Black Rock bully who sings karaoke Elvis in the Coors-drenched bars. But we also see the positives: the wholesome values of the simple pioneers who literally built their town and whose fraternal civic conscience kept it together. This America is what Bruce Springsteen exists to wail about. Payne has used this setting, which could be a million one-horse towns across the States, to tease out emotions not in abundance on a Hollywood set.

Nebraska is realism worshipper Alexander Payne’s first film since Oscar-nominated The Descendants. A melancholy portrayal of human relations, people dealing with the endless march of time, and the ability to forgive, this film deserves the same respect.

Top 10 Film Noirs

1) The Maltese Falcon

And so it all began. This 1941 production is generally considered to have kickstarted the genre, combining various elements of earlier cinema (such as German Expressionism) and popular fiction (like the dime novel). The Maltese Falcon blends these in iconic fashion.

Humphrey Bogart stars as Sam Spade: the classic Noir actor playing the classic Noir character. That image that we all have – of a mac-clad fedora’d PI, stalking the nocturnal cityscape in the rain, pulling guns on low-lives and falling for dames – emanates from The Maltese Falcon.  The grotesque Sydney Greenstreet and the snivelling Peter Lorre support, bumbling both sides of the blurred good-bad line. It created a template for the next decade and a half: cynical private eye, devious femme fatale, duplicitous career criminals and a whisky-soaked rambling hardboiled plot. And a lot of smoking.

2) The Big Sleep

Howard Hawks, the stylish master director behind a diverse string of Hollywood hits, brought Raymond Chandler’s pulp masterpiece The Big Sleep onto the big screen.

The plot is a convoluted mess, with many elements not adding up. It boils down to a decrepit old man, so physically broken that he has to derive all tobacco enjoyment from passive smoking, hiring a detective to investigate his daughter’s blackmailing. Obviously, it’s a little more complicated than this. Indeed, it is so complicated that an addled Hawks himself had to ring Chandler to enquire about some details... Chandler was as clueless. But this muddle reflects the mess that the characters are involved in.

Humphrey Bogart predictably turns out a masterful performance, but newcomer Lauren Bacall ensures that the on-screen chemistry sizzled between the stars unforgettably. Think The Maltese Falcon, then double.

3) The Third Man

The Third Man stands out, partly, because it is European. An all-star cast and production crew (Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Carol Reed, Graham Greene, David Selznick) ensured that this was a hugely successful film, and is still considered one of history’s greatest movies. The startling zither soundtrack, awkward camera angles, and postwar Vienna setting have created a unique European take on the classic Noir.

Cotton plays Holly Martins, a puppy-like writer of cheap novelettes. He is promised a job by old buddy Harry Lime (Welles), but on arrival in Vienna discovers Lime has been killed. Yes – it’s a little more complicated than that. Nosey Martins enters a crash course with the military police, who run the city, and racketeers, who do the same, as well as treading a tragic path of unrequited love with Lime’s old flame, Anna (Alida Valli).

The film’s brilliant dialogue, mesmerizing acting and complex human interactions mean that The Third Man is more than just 'fun': it is a heavyweight production and fantastic viewing. If for nothing else, then watch for the famous last scene, which shows the making of a cynical Noir protagonist out of the mould of an optimistic American.

4) Double Indemnity

It is often Double Indemnity, and not The Big Sleep, which earns the ‘top Noir’ prize in such lists. Written by pulp-master Raymond Chandler in a stupor (as a recovering alcoholic, Chandler insisted that he be locked at home with a typewriter and a box of whisky to be able to do this job) and directed by Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity is told characteristically for the genre through flashback.

A dying Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) narrates the doomed tale of his destruction at the hands of Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson, the ultimate femme fatale. Her heart, we eventually learn, is pure evil, although we guess it well before sucker Walter. Stanwyck’s mesmerising performance ensures that it is the most iconic depiction of a femme fatale. Also featured is Edward G. Robinson as a sage-like godfather figure. His acting pedigree in the genre is supported by appearances in Key Largo and Scarlet Street.

5) Gilda

Another Noir that explores the femme fatale is Gilda, only this time in a more sympathetic light. Instead of pure evil, Gilda (Rita Hayworth) is as much of the victim as anyone, a rareity in Film Noir.

Glenn Ford is Johnny Farrell, a two-bit loser of a gambler who ends up working for the enigmatic Ballin Mundson (what kind of a name is that anyway?) played by George Macready. They do nicely, Johnny running Ballin’s lucrative casino. But one day old Mundson appears with a new wife, Gilda. She and Johnny used to know each other well, but their relationship ended acrimoniously. Things heat up, and the makers threw in some criminals for added zest.

Three immature adults arguing in a casino might not sound all that great, but its exploration of the vulnerabilities of Noir characters is gripping and thought-provoking, and not what might be expected.

6) Pickup on South Street / Kiss Me Deadly

Pickup on South Street’s tense opening scene shows pickpocket Skip McCoy using his lightfingered ways to relieve a young woman of her belongings. Unfortunately for Skip, a boastful egotist who lives in a shack with the Hudson River as a fridge, the woman’s purse contained state secrets due to be smuggled from the country. Thus, braggadocious Skip winds up in an international spying conspiracy, and has to outwit both the cops and the criminal traitors. Whilst its hallmarks are all typical Noir, what makes Pickup on South St. interesting is that it is a reflection of Cold War paranoia – a fear of subversion, foreign powers and America’s inability to guard its secrets. On a more immediate level, the broody jazz soundtrack and wiseguy cop-crook banter make Pickup on South Street a lightly entertaining picture.

In terms of plot, nothing about Kiss Me Deadly really stands out. Ralph Meeker is PI Mike Hammer, a Noir staple a little less recognisable as Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. There are some cops (FBI this time), some girls, and a whole lot of nocturnal anger. But what Kiss Me Deadly has is the same as Pickup on South Street: a reflection of Cold War paranoia. This time it’s nuclear annihilation. Hammer is looking for the great whatsit, a MacGuffin which materialises as radionuclide stuff, stolen by gangsters. The result isn’t pretty. 

7) Out of the Past

If there is one depressed Noir male more weary and cynical than Humphrey Bogart it’s Robert Mitchum. Mitchum, whose heavy eyelids alone mark the tragedy of a thousand heartbreaks, plays PI Jeff Bailey, on a case of double-crossing, theft and a femme fatale – you know the score by now. There’s rain, there’s darkness, there’s shooting. There’s a private dick in a mac and a wide-brimmed hat. Over the course of the film, the layers are peeled back and we learn more about how Joe was wronged and outwitted.

This is stereotypical stuff, but, much like The Big Sleep, it is classic stereotypical stuff. Mitchum’s laconic performance engenders real sympathy from the viewer.

8) Sunset Boulevard

After a series of unfortunate events, hack screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) is hired by forgotten silent star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) to work on her triumphant return to the screen. He is by no means a courageous fighter, more of a down-and-outer (to quote Brando) trying to take advantage of an old bat. She is half mad, deluded and suicidal – a worse situation, one might argue. Being a Noir, it doesn’t end well.

Swanson was herself a successful actress in the pre-sound days, and as this was her most significant post-‘20s hit, we can guess where she got her inspiration from. A similar character is her butler, Max. He was once a prominent director and husband of Norma, but gave that all up to care for the love of his life. Max is played by Erich von Stroheim, an Austrian star and director from the silent era, now playing a supporting role to survive. Other similar figures make appearances, like Cecile B. DeMille and Buster Keaton. Art imitating life indeed.

As well as being a brilliant and gripping film, Sunset Blvd. is a stinging critique of the Hollywood system. Its superficial gloss and the madness it throws its forgotten rejects into seem real because, in all likelihood, they are. Listen for the famous ‘All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up!’.

9) In a Lonely Place

If you’ve seen other Bogart Noirs, such as the above or Key Largo, In a Lonely Place will be a pleasant surprise. A film which showcases Bogart’s emotional depth as an actor like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, this film centres on a relationship breakdown and paranoia.

Another unlucky screenwriter falls for Gloria Grahame’s (herself an experienced Noir star) Laurel in a whirlwind romance. Rather annoyingly, he is simultaneously a suspect in a murder enquiry. How tedious! The stress of this position works over his mind until he is a violent bully, convinced the world is out to get him. He is cleared, but it is too late to salvage his relationship.

One of Bogart’s finest performances – a worthy rebuttal to any non-believers of this man’s immense talent.

10) Touch of Evil

In 1958 Orson Welles produced his finest attempt at a Noir. So stylish and dark is this that Welles finished what The Maltese Falcon had started – it couldn’t be pushed any further.

Welles uses his grotesque obesity to good effect as an irredeemably corrupt cop, who frames shady characters left, right and centre in a sleazy border town. Mexican gangsters vie for control, bombing and murdering anyone they need to. However, Mexican detective Vargas (Charlton Heston, who doesn’t look any more Hispanic than a kilt) arrives at the works with a spanner. He is also trying to have a good start to his recent marriage with Janet Leigh’s Susie – a veritable comedy of errors.

The camera angles of The Third Man are times ten, the madness of Sunset Blvd. is revved up, and the brutal sleaze of Double Indemnity is put into overdrive. The writing is tight, the storyline comprehensible, and tragedy tearjearking. A strong cast, featuring Marlene Dietrich, also helps. And look out for the scene which resembles Psycho very strongly.