David O Russell pays tribute to the
art of the con job in American Hustle
The con job and the grifter occupy a
special place in crime films. While on the wrong side of the law, the
grifter is a typically sympathetic character whose ingenuity,
perseverance, and working class background are celebrated while their
marks, typically the rich or the greedy, are considered fair game.
As the film’s title suggests,
Russell’s gimmick in American Hustle is to present professional
grifters and their confidence tricks as an allegory for the very
American preoccupation with self-improvement and the reinvention of
the self. The second gimmick is to approach the police sting as a
confidence trick played by cops instead of criminals, and to tell the
FBI Abscam sting operation as such. The twist in American Hustle is
that after a certain point, practically everyone is out of their
depth, doesn’t realise it, and continues spinning their madcap
plans with utter confidence. The audience is in on the twist, which
makes their increasing confidence all the more hilarious.
Story-wise, Russell retells the Abscam
operation like a shaggy dog story: a charming if over‑long yarn
laden with visual distractions, narrative red herrings, silly gags,
and shout‑outs to the excesses of 70s music and fashion. Yet
behind all this frivolity and entertainment is an ensemble-wide study
on the nature of self-fashioning as confidence trick and
self-delusion, and as an American condition.
If anything, American Hustle confirms
my suspicions that Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are the best
comic actors in Hollywood right now, and that this is the most
ambitious and accessible film David O Russell has made so far.
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