American Hustle

3 pipes out of 4

America has been hustled. In every commercial designed to market American Hustle it is projected as a comedy when in fact it is not. There may be a few funny moments but it is much more of a drama. The marketers even hustled the Golden Globes winning Best Picture for a comedy or musical. What if fear is the case is that the main comedy of the film was supposed to come out of the situations and actions of the characters. The problem with this was that while these actions and actions may have been designed to be funny, when compared to the whole film and the desperation of the characters, they are not actually that funny. Had American Hustle been billed as a serious drama I would have come out of the film much more satisfied but being a comedy I was expecting to feel happy and energetic when all I felt was depressed. Don’t get me wrong, Christian Bale pulls of an acting masterpiece along with Amy Adams, with Jennifer Lawrence doing a superb job as bale’s deranged wife. Bradley Cooper on the other hand simply does an adequate job in his role not really stretching his acting from his other roles, most similarly in The Silver Linings Playbook. A theory has floated out there that Cooper can only act well when he is surrounded by good actors and I am beginning to agree with this theory. Cooper did well in A-Team alongside Liam Neeson, Sharlto Copley and Jessica Biel and he did his best work in The Silver Linings Playbook alongside Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Deniro and Jackie Weaver. His lone projects such as The Hangover Part II and III as well as Limitless have been terrible. But I digress, as long as you know what you are going into American Hustle is a must see before the Oscars because it has a good chance to win big.