Review: American Hustle's Funhouse For Con Men

There's a scene in the new David O. Russell film American Hustle where Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams have an monstrous cat fight. It's all sheer shrillness: taunting, shouting, groping, slapping. Not since Bette Davis and Joan Crawford tangled in Whatever Happened In Baby Jane has there been such a bitchfest.
But, here's the deal: In this tour de force, Lawrence and Adams are fighting over a guy who's nothing more than a tin horn grifter -- a total loser, superbly portrayed by Christian Bale. This guy's claim to fame lies somewhere between the few neighborhood dry cleaners that he purportedly owns and his cheap, elaborate combover.
And in many ways, this swindler is the center of the movie's story, loosely based on the FBI's 1978 Abscam investigation which eventually led to the convictions of one United States senator, six members of the US House of representatives, three members of Philadelphia City Council and the mayor of Camden who was also a New Jersey state senator.
American Hustle is a companion piece to The Wolf of Wall Street. Like Wolf, it's loud, raucous, in-your-face and profanity-laced. And like Wolf, its characters seem to have absolutely no redeeming social value. The characters are constantly threatening one another, lying to each other, humiliating one another and putting themselves and others in harm's way for nothing more than their own greed and/or false egos. We say "false" because nearly all of the main characters here are rough hewn and hopelessly insecure.
These sorts of personalities and their attendant behavior seem to be a hallmark of Russell's films. So, this is like The Fighter meets the FBI. But even the vaulted FBI comes off as amateurish and base in this movie. In fact, the film coaxes you to take pity on the bad guys while laughing at and mocking the good guys.
And the story takes so many con-induced turns that it's sometimes hard to keep up with.
Well, there was a time when the narrative [the story itself] was king in Hollywood. The legendary studios and their powerful movie moguls saw to that. The  story came first.
But the studios and the moguls are gone. And now the narrative is what we call the way the public perceives a political campaign -- or the way politicians want you to perceive things. So now, the narrative is nothing more than the latest round of phony image manipulation.
Today's movies are said to be character driven, if they're driven by anything at all. And what we get in American Hustle is over-the-top acting by an ensemble cast that seems to have been told to simply go at one another with a fearless ferocity.
So, Lawrence and Adams use everything at their disposal to steal scenes. And in the end, you give a slight edge to Adams just because this seems to be such a surprising role for her and because, incredibly she interjects a bit of subtlety into her character. On top of that, she proves to be wonderfully seductive here, especially in her sizzling almost-sex scenes with Bradley Cooper, a guy who seems to have been born to be a movie star. And then there's Christian Bale who completely inhabits yet another persona to the point where you're nothing less than astonished.
But we mustn't forget Jeremy Renner who plays Camden Mayor Carmine Polito (actually the late Angelo Errichetti, often called Ange or Eric). Since we knew Errichetti, all we can say is Renner absolutely nails it. He's managed to virtually clone Errichetti's look and mannerisms. When Renner's eyes get full and watery, Ange is alive again. Magnificent!
Louis C. K. is also wonderful as a paper-shuffling, bureaucratic FBI middle manager who bedevils his ambitious, bombastic (and perhaps coke-snorting) underling ably played by Cooper. And keep an eye out for Jack Huston (John Huston's grandson) as Pete Musane. This young actor (who's also a regular on Boardwalk Empire) has a bright fixture ahead of him.
Oh, one other thing. There's a Very Famous Movie Legend in this flick but he takes no screen credit. You'll recognize him instantly and you'll love the way he plays his role.
Okay, at the beginning of American Hustle the screen announces that "Some of this actually happened." And, indeed some of it did. But, even though Abscam was a messy scheme that many regarded as entrapment, the way it's depicted on the screen gives us only a broad-brushed, hyperbolic and sometimes even cartoonish version of the facts.
But who wants to deal with the boring, everyday business of government or the plodding nature of law enforcement or all those dusty old law books, anyway?
This is exaggerated history played as grainy comedy with a clear-cut message that finally manages to emerge from all the dim-witted, riotous behavior: Don't try to out-con a con artist.