Constance Wu and Jennifer Lopez anchor this exciting, funny, and technically proficient crime drama that needed a few more dramatic punch-ups to it’s story.
What was most jaw-dropping about Hustlers (beyond the first scene of J-Lo’s pole dance), was how technically proficient and exhilarating it was. Many films like this get swept up in using the most recent pop hits to stay in tune with current pop culture, but the needle drops are effective because it recognizes that music existed before the year that this film released. From Lorde’s “Royals”, Spears’ “Gimme More”, and Usher’s “Love in this Club”, Hustlers incorporates music in this movie in a way that completely enamored me. On occasion it felt like the music had a source of output within the realm of the film, and sometimes it did, but the way it was presented was so euphoric and timely within the events of the film that the coincidence of it all really struck me. It reminded me a lot of Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver in that regard.
The cinematography of Tom Banhazl is the equivalent of being star struck. The way he frames characters at their lowest point of their dramatic story, compared to the peaks of ecstatic euphoria, is genuinely bone-chilling on occasion. Every scene in the strip club is composed with slow pans, and some of the most effective slo-mo I’ve seen in a long time. The scenes behind the stage and beyond the poles and exclusive rooms are chaotic, but concise, and an avenue into exploring the perspectives of these women who have this job. Many words fly around, but it can always be drawn back to a significant point that helps us better understand these women and what they’re going through in life because of the fantastic camerawork.
Beyond it’s technical marvels and stark use of color, sound, and camerawork, Constance Wu and Jennifer Lopez are bonafide stars. Lopez slightly more so than Wu, but Wu absolutely makes that final push around the corner to prove she deserves to be leading films (If you didn’t believe so after Crazy Rich Asians). She’s funny, likable, charming, dramatic, and exciting to watch because of her screen presence. Her journey now reminds me a lot of where Gal Gadot was a few years ago, and the more Constance Wu we get, the better the movie probably will be. She’s excellent. As for Lopez, who is most recognized due to her artistic talents beyond on-screen performances, delivers one of the best performances of the year. If not for Awkwafina’s raw and virtually inhuman performance in Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, this would be the best performance I have seen from a female all year. The power she exudes, the emotion she emits and elicits from audiences and co-stars alike are simply dazzling. There’s always one or two moments where these trifecta stars take me out of the movie, but she owned and convinced me every single frame she was in. Simply electric in so many ways that only a personality as versatile as Jennifer Lopez could pull off.
Where Hustlers missed the mark for me, was it’s bumpy third act, and it’s lack of indictment for it’s characters. Going in I had heard talks swirling about how it’s a bit too nice to the characters/people this film is based off of, but I never expected it to justify a lot of the behavior. Don’t get me wrong, Hustlers is a genuinely great film, one of the year’s 10-15 best, but it lacks a lot of that punch that it needed to be a truly damning crime drama. It toes the line between lifestyle porn and personal drama well enough, but it’s excess felt too glitz and glam for the subject matter. Ironically, Hustlers reminded me a lot more of The Wolf of Wall Street more than than it did Goodfellas (as I’m sure you’ve been seeing the comparisons). What separates the ingenious of Scorsese and a young, up and coming director with loads of potential like Scafaria, is it’s indictment of it’s cast of characters. I would have felt the emotional gut punch of this film more if it took that time to lean into how terrible the scenario actually was. It always felt like there was some justification for every terrible act, and although it’s final line is great, really summed up how it wanted to handle those threads. It’s cool to recognize that this world is dominated by the disgustingly rich men who only continue to get rich by leeching off of a specific class of people, but it never goes the distance in bleeding those two classes. It was mildly disappointing to not see Scafaria take advantage of the time in it’s latest stages to truly showcase the ramifications of their actions on the people’s lives they ruined.
All in all, go see this movie as soon as you can. Not only is it fascinating and a story that sort of flew under the radar within the last 10 years, but it’s funny, full of great performances, a perfect soundtrack, sublime camerawork, and really well edited. When I noticed Adam McKay’s executive producer credit, I realized that this film reminded me a lot of his better works, but also realized that this film is far and away better than anything he’s done in a while. At the same time it falls into the trappings of his shortcomings in a film like The Big Short (a movie I wasn’t head over heels for like most), and it’s interesting to see these two films deal with different perspectives of similar events and how exciting they are to watch, how funny it is, but how I feel it lacks that extra dramatic punch-up it needs. Beyond that, this is one of the best movies in theaters right now and it lived up to the hype in more ways than I could have anticipated. Bring your wallet full of ones, you may want to go back for seconds.
Hustlers gets an 83/100