American Hustle

[ZooCougar]

Best movie I have seen in ages. Clearly the best film Russell has made and he has made some really good ones.

 

[meyers7]

Was planning on seeing it this last weekend, but other things took priority. Hopefully we can get out to see it next weekend. Really looking forward to this one.

 

[partial]

I thought it was entertaining, some of the minor roles were pretty campy and there's like 5 scenes of people lip singing songs which was about 5 scenes too many for me.

 

[4UConn]

GREAT film...politics as usual in NJ. Great acting all around. Like the prologue...'some of this really happened'.

 

[Palatine]

Too long. Needed to be tightened up.

 

[cohenzone]

I thought the parts were greater than the sum of the whole. Good acting, but kind of like Ocean's 11 meets Abscam.

 

[SubbaBub]

I have a hard time enjoying shows depicting this period. The greasy hair, the polyester, the giant collars, the smog. The whole of the late 70's remind me of the third day bedridden with the flu....phlegmy and sticky, yuck.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Great movie. Jeremy Renner is one of my favorite actors. He was perfect as the really nice, likable, ethically ambiguous Carmen Polito. Christian Bale was very good too in a role very off standard for him. Cooper as the overly ambitious but not particularly intelligent FBI agent was great. This may have been the first movie where Amy Adams didn't completely chew the scenery. Russell deserves an Oscar for that alone.

The scene with Deniro is a fairly large plot hole though. As soon as Deniro stared speaking Arabic and it was clear that the "Sheik" had no idea what he was saying, that room would have cleared out.

 

[superjohn]

It really is a fun movie, Jennifer Lawrence was good and of course Bale was great but the real standout was Jeremy Renner, just a great performance.

 

[Waquoit]

Too long. Needed to be tightened up.

I thought the parts were greater than the sum of the whole.

These two posts sum in up for me. I enjoyed it fine, but Bradley Cooper is still seems a bit of a lightweight to me.

 

[meyers7]

These two posts sum in up for me. I enjoyed it fine, but Bradley Cooper is still seems a bit of a lightweight to me.

Well he did mostly start out in Rom-coms (or just comedies). But it looks like he's trying to stretch out to more meaty roles. I thought he was very good in Silver Linings Playbook.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

These two posts sum in up for me. I enjoyed it fine, but Bradley Cooper is still seems a bit of a lightweight to me.

He is supposed to be a lightweight in the movie. It is a hard role to pull off. Most actors are very intelligent (lots of remembering lines and putting yourself in the shoes of others, etc.), and many struggle when trying to play someone who is not too bright. I thought Cooper did a great job playing someone who could almost, but not quite, see the whole picture. He was smart enough to catch Bale and Adams' characters, but not smart enough to save himself.

Huston from Boardwalk Empire is an amazing actor, and I hope he gets more roles. His character didn't do much in this movie, but he has such an interesting look and is so good that he should be getting roles as a character actor for as long as he wants them.