Review: Hustlers

Hustlers
Cert: 15 / 110 mins / Dir. Lorene Scafaria / Trailer



I think I'd consigned Hustlers to the 'no thanks mate' shelf by the point of a gratuitous slo-mo sequence telling me I was supposed to be impressed that someone in the production company had managed to convince Usher to come on and play himself for sixty seconds. Although I spend thirty of those trying to remember who the fuck Usher was. But I digress...

Lorena Scafaria's strutting crime-spree stars Constance Wu as Destiny, a fresh-faced lap dancer in 2008 New York. Under the guidance of Jennifer Lopez's older and wiser Ramona, the pair realise that swirling round greasy poles for pervy old men may cover the rent but it'll never make them rich*¹. With that in mind, they recruit Annabelle (Lili Reinhart) and Mercedes (Keke Palmer) to form A Crew™; drugging then card-scamming the more obscenely wealthy (ie morally dubious) of their Wall Street clientelé. Obviously this is a delicate balancing act; how far can, and indeed should, they go?

STORIES

Now. There are two ways to approach this (and indeed any) film. For what it's trying to say, and how eloquently it manages to say it. Like many similarly-formatted stories, Scafaria's movie sprang from a magazine article based on real life experiences. And as with many similar stories, there is a compelling tale to be told. But Hustlers it's like watching a hen party re-enact The Wolf Of Wall Street for two hours. Fine if that's your thing, but don't pretend it's got deeper meaning because the crooks are wearing bikinis.

So you're going to what Destiny, out-capitalise capitalism? How very post-modern. Not sure that's quite as revolutionary as you think, though. Because it doesn't really matter how crooked 'the suits' are, you're not really Robin Hood when you're just in it for a bigger house*². Being a single parent in a tough gig but here it's treated as a get-out-of-jail-free card (literally in some cases)*³. This is the same entitled-logic which flawed the likes of Going In Style.

MONSTERS

I think for Hustlers to work, the viewer has to subscribe - on some level - to the moral validity of lap-dancing clubs. And much like non-disclosure of terminal cancer, that was a line I just couldn't cross. You want to pole-dance? Fantastic, good on ya, you look great. You want to do it for the power-play entertainment of some of society's absolute worst people and still pretend you're providing a worthwhile service? I'm waiting to be convinced. This film didn't.

And sure, likeable characters aren't everything, but interesting or complicated ones would be helpful*⁴. Because when you've got past the me-first archetypes using the word "family" as punctuation, Hustlers is in incredibly ordinary film. Its well-worn interview/flashback framing device sets up the first act struggle, the second act highs and third act lows - all of which are predictable and vacuous in equal measure. Is real life always this boring or are these just the stories magazine subsribers pretend to be interested in?

BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA

The movie doesn't have the wild hedonistic streak nor the searching philosophical questions it thinks it has, only copycat approximations which appear in mid-range Saturday night multiplex fare. Lorene Scafaria wants us to look past the bikinis and baby oil to see the people underneath. I did that and it was still grubby and linear. If Scarface is a cocktail of tequila and cocaine in the back room of an illicit club, Hustlers is a bottle of Lambrini smuggled into a provincial theatre for a Dreamboys*⁵ show.

Naturally it all ends with a greatest-hits montage comprising moments from a film the audience hasn't yet finished watching, followed by a cynical, faux-ponderous one liner from J-Lo. Rarely before have I spent so long waiting for That Oscar-Bait to kick in*⁶.

So what is this? Ocean's Eight Nights? Magic Mike But For The Dads? While the film clearly thinks it's better than spending two hours ogling feisty women, I suspect the finer points of this are going to be lost on The Wrong Type Of Audience. Although since they're paying the same admission, perhaps that's the real hustle...

Well it's probably more Miss Sloane than The Wolf Of Wall Street, but not as good as either..



If you like watching your lap-dancing up close and huge but can't work up the courage to go to a lap-dancing club, I expect so.



Stream if you must, re-watch value is going to be low here (unless you fall into the bracket above).



Nope.



Yep.



Nope.



Level 2: Frank Whaley's in this, and he was in Pulp Fiction sitting in a chair being shot at by Sam 'Windu' Jackson as Phil 'Fisto' LaMarr looked on in horror.



I don't have the energy to award this a two. For all my ranting, it's not an awful movie, it's just firmly below average. What's annoyed me more is how everyone else seems to adore it, the heathens.


*¹ First half hour of film: 'Hey, we're dancers, not hookers! Respect this job!'. Rest of film: 'Ugh, I can't go back to the pole, that's so beneath me!'. And while both of these can certainly be true, bear in mind that the movie opens with our heroine Destiny glumly counting out around $200 for a night's work once everybody's taken their cut. Since she's getting paid cash are we to assume there's no tax coming out of that later? It certainly appears that Destiny has never worked a week in a factory. Or in a restaurant. Or a school. Or that Destiny had any job where she doesn't expect people to literally throw money at her. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Do not get me wrong, I'm not on the side of the drugged guys here. At all. At one end they're deserving of far worse and at the other they should fucking well know better. If Mortgage-Man is gullible enough to think he's being chatted up in a bar by four absolute hotties and he can hear a single word they speak over the alarm bells that should be ringing in his head, then frankly he should either learn a lesson and move on or track the crew down himself and persuade them to issue a refund. Although their game was totally illegal, the ladies didn't mug Terry down a dark alley - he walked into this shit with his eyes wide open. Getting the police involved ain't going to get your cash back mate. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Oh no, J-Lo isn't allowed to dictate her own flexible working ours in a retail job just because she's a single parent unlike anybody else! THIS IS THE PATRIARCHY BOO THE BAD MAN!! ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ The most migraine-inducing line comes from Destiny: "Y'know, I have this nightmare where I'm in the back seat of a car, then I notice that no one is driving, and no matter how hard I try I can't get into the front to control it!". OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU'RE SO DEEP I WONDER WHAT THAT COULD MEAN?? ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁵ Are the Dreamboys still a thing? I don't know and I'll be honest I'm not going to look it up. You know what I mean though.
^{[ BACK ]}

*⁶ Really Harpers Bazaar? Fucking really Empire? The Academy Award For Looking Wistfully At A Photograph? Or for doing the jaw-jutting, table-punching stomp that J-Lo does as default in any of her movies when someone disagrees with her? OH!, the Academy Award for acting as if buying genuine fur coats in the 21st century is acceptable in a parable about moral justice. I SEE. Yeah, send that one off to the engravers now mate... ^{[ BACK ]}


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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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