American Hustle: 75 Out Of 100 Stars

Very good movie, that for whatever reason just never slips into realm of greatness that it feels like it's teetering on.

The direction, the sets and the acting are all top notch, the problem might be that the start of the story seems.....I dunno, too manufactured? The set up borrows heavily from the way Vegas and Goodfellas did it, but this doesn't hold the same weight.

Once things get rolling, the story is pretty good, but really this is a film carried by Bale, who is fucking amazing. And Jeremy Renner is probably going to be criminally under looked, but my god was he awesome in this. Amy Adams actually didn't irritate me as much as she usually does, but Bradley Cooper is starting to wear on me some. Actually it's not much his fault, at some point it just became irritating how much the movie tried to bash me over the head with "this is a guy living in the 70's". I mean, he may as well have been trying to be a disco king. Louis CK, though a bit jarring watching him play an actual role, is also really fun. Jennifer Lawrence, I'm not so sure what the point of her was, she just seemed out of place playing the weathered mom. Out of place and unnecessary if I'm being honest, and this is coming from someone who would do the proverbial gross things to do the proverbial gross things to her.

The story is pretty fun, though at times it tries to come across as a lot more clever than it actually is, but I can forgive that. The thing to me was, a lot of the time that was spent on Cooper and Adams kind of kept pushing against how great I think the movie could have been if it was focused more on Bale and Renner who really had a couple of emotional, top flight performances that the movie would have been better served to give more focus too. I'm probably complaining too much about was really a good movie. Oh well.

So yeah, American Hustle is a strong, fun, period piece that might have a little too much going on, if only because Bale and Renner are so fantastic that you wish it was more focused on them and their relationship.