Hustlers (2019)
Directed by Lorene Scafaria
A crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.
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What critics say influenced Hustlers
There are shades of the wit and grit of Scorsese's Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street but Scafaria combines it with a refreshingly sincere approach, akin to Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike .
Scafaria (“Seeking a Friend at the End of the World”) has studied the Martin Scorsese playbook perfectly, and there’s a distinct “Wolf of Wall Street”/“GoodFellas” vibe to the accumulation of money, furs and Louis Vuitton bags.
Hustlers cuts back and forth between the past and the present (there is also narration and an elaborate long take around the entire strip club reminiscent of the tracking camera work in Goodfellas, just to further drive the Martin Scorsese comparisons home), but it should be obvious to anyone reading this review that eventually someone does blow this up into a scandal.
Indeed, Hustlers feels akin to the crime films of both Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Casino) and Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice).
Todd Banhazl’s cinematography, which snakes and dashes and zooms around this pre-2008 crash excess, recalls the virtuosic, cocksure visuals we associate with Martin Scorsese’s kinetic studies in greed ( Goodfellas , Casino , The Wolf of Wall Street ).
Playing a scheming stripper who rips off men and barely bats an eyelash, Jennifer Lopez has her best role since "Out of Sight" in "Hustlers," a seductive crime drama that's like "Goodfellas" with stripper poles.
Indeed, Hustlers feels akin to the crime films of both Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Casino) and Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice).
Todd Banhazl’s cinematography, which snakes and dashes and zooms around this pre-2008 crash excess, recalls the virtuosic, cocksure visuals we associate with Martin Scorsese’s kinetic studies in greed ( Goodfellas , Casino , The Wolf of Wall Street ).
“The Untouchables” (explicitly referenced), “Casino,” you name it.
In a way, this behind-the-scenes tutorial offers the film’s most compelling material, not unlike how Scorsese’s opening to Casino outstrips the rest of that movie.
One thing that’s been noticed by many critics and other viewers of Hustlers is just how much it resembles Martin Scorsese’s crime films, most notably Goodfellas , Casino , The Departed , and The Wolf of Wall Street .
The Casino gangsters made too much noise.
There are shades of the wit and grit of Scorsese's Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street but Scafaria combines it with a refreshingly sincere approach, akin to Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike .
Conceived as a ‘financial crash film’ in the vein of Adam McKay’s The Big Short and Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street , it was first offered to these two men.
Todd Banhazl’s cinematography, which snakes and dashes and zooms around this pre-2008 crash excess, recalls the virtuosic, cocksure visuals we associate with Martin Scorsese’s kinetic studies in greed ( Goodfellas , Casino , The Wolf of Wall Street ).
There are certainly echoes of Scorsese’s work here, namely Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street , since we’re watching Destiny’s morality chip away bit by bit.
Elaine Lui has said that Hustlers should be talked about in the same breath as GoodFellas — that it’s as good as that classic gangster film and better than The Wolf of Wall Street and should therefore get the same prestige treatment come Oscar season.
Writer and director Lorene Scafaria crafts what is essentially The Wolf of Wall Street where the filthy rich incapable of staying away from debauchery repeatedly get their own comeuppance from the wits of independently driven strippers looking to prey on them and drain their wallets, in the same manner, they might do to some unlucky schmuck they take advantage of over the phone.
One thing that’s been noticed by many critics and other viewers of Hustlers is just how much it resembles Martin Scorsese’s crime films, most notably Goodfellas , Casino , The Departed , and The Wolf of Wall Street .
There are shades of the wit and grit of Scorsese's Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street but Scafaria combines it with a refreshingly sincere approach, akin to Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike .
Though there are early moments when the film recalls the vibe (if not the particulars) of Magic Mike, Scafaria uses the opening scenes to provide a “stripper primer” – how it’s all about the tease and what kind of Wall Street workers provide the best marks (always look for the wedding ring).
When Magic Mike arrived in 2012 the stripper was infused with an air of seriousness, courtesy of director Steven Soderbergh, though it reminded audiences of the double standards that plague these narratives (women are regularly nude, men aren’t).
It has its drawbacks; the pacing is not always on point and can lurch forward at some moments or ritard to a standstill, particularly in the second act; but, like Magic Mike before it, Hustlers is a movie that successfully manages to interweave surfaces pleasures with substantive themes.
In this introduction, Lopez gives the audience a jaw-dropping spectacle and full-body rush on par with Channing Tatum’s “Pony” sequence from Magic Mike.
"Hustlers" could, and should, do for her what "Magic Mike" did for Matthew McConaughey.
Playing a scheming stripper who rips off men and barely bats an eyelash, Jennifer Lopez has her best role since "Out of Sight" in "Hustlers," a seductive crime drama that's like "Goodfellas" with stripper poles.
Writer-director Lorene Scafaria doesn't quite match the nervy momentum Scorsese sustained in “Goodfellas,” but she more than compensates by eliciting strong performances from her ensemble cast, including Lopez, who hasn't been this good since Steven Soderbergh's “Out of Sight.”
The performances are also remarkable, with Lopez giving a career-best performance, her first in two decades to live up to the promise of Selena and Out of Sight, and Wu matching her, their characters’ relationship tender but hiding some spite underneath.
Jennifer Lopez, incorporating elements of her “diva” personality into a richly-textured performance, rediscovers the actress who won raves so many years ago when she starred opposite George Clooney in Out of Sight.
But we have to talk about Jennifer Lopez, making a full-fledged comeback to the big screen (after re-focusing on her music career and languishing in schlock like The Boy Next Door and the short-lived cop drama Shades of Blue ) with her meatiest role since Out of Sight .
Jennifer Lopez is getting Oscar buzz for her fierce and foul-mouthed and screen-commanding work here, and indeed it’s her strongest performance (and the best role she’s been given) since “Out of Sight” some two decades ago.
Think Ocean’s Eleven with strippers and you’ve got the premise of Lorene Scafaria’s surprising, gripping Hustlers.
Conceived as a ‘financial crash film’ in the vein of Adam McKay’s The Big Short and Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street , it was first offered to these two men.
It is serious business – both literally and figuratively – and yet this 2008-financial-crisis cautionary tale ( The Big Short director Adam McKay is one of the producers) channels the stylized form of a female buddy movie.
The marketing for Hustlers gives the impression that this has The Big Short or Vice (and Adam McKay, the director of both, is a producer on Hustlers) or even Ocean’s 11 vibes, but Hustlers is a more grounded and sombre movie than those dramedies.
Indeed, Hustlers feels akin to the crime films of both Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Casino) and Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice).
“The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013), “The Big Short” (2015) and “Wall Street” (1987) all capture fast cash and high times in vivid blurs of overindulgence, articulated through mounds of designer drugs, $100 bottles of champagne and long-legged women in G-strings sashaying about for well-fleeced oglers.
There have been many Wall Street movies that include strippers and sex workers as background filler or punchlines; these can range from Martin Scorsese’s intentionally debauched The Wolf of Wall Street —where the line between documentation and exploitation is intentionally blurred—to even Hustlers producer Adam McKay’s own The Big Short , which might be the definitive cinematic tragi-comedy about the housing crisis.
The marketing for Hustlers gives the impression that this has The Big Short or Vice (and Adam McKay, the director of both, is a producer on Hustlers) or even Ocean’s 11 vibes, but Hustlers is a more grounded and sombre movie than those dramedies.
Indeed, Hustlers feels akin to the crime films of both Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Casino) and Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice).
Hustlers is an electrifying response to the deluge of stories we’ve had over the years about very rich, very bad dudes (it’s worth noting one of the film’s producers is Adam McKay, the director of Vice and The Big Short , which both deal with such characters).
Among the film’s producers is Adam McKay, whose 2018 “Vice” (about Dick Cheney) was a model of political and social satire.
I also felt the eventual collapse of their scheme was a bit rushed and the film certainly doesn't match the brilliance of "Boogie Nights" in showing the rise, decadence, and fall of those in the skin trade.
On the other hand, the very idea of "Hustlers"--a jazzed-up crime spectacle in the vein of "Goodfellas" and "Boogie Nights" that has been given a feminist spin--is so undeniably appealing at its core that it takes you a while to finally realize that it never really comes together in a satisfying manner.
Like Boogie Nights or Magic Mike XXL , there are some who will stay away from the story because of the subject matter alone.
Instead, a la Boogie Nights, they form part of a de-facto family.
Like P.T. Anderson's Boogie Nights (an old favorite), director Lorene Scafaria frames Hustlers as historical allegory, a story of America as much as of its characters' rise and fall, straddling the unfettered, decadent excess and mournful, grimy desperation on either side of the 2008 economic crash.
"Drain the clock, not the cock," instructs Cardi B's Diamond in what feels like a feminist inversion of Tom Cruise's "Respect the cock, tame the cunt" sermon in Magnolia .
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Unlike say Showgirls, which throws glitter on these stereotypes and asks us not to take anything too seriously, or Pretty Woman, which worked the aspirational princess fairy tale angle, Hustlers tries for a Sex and the City vibe, which might work as a feel-good set-up if not for the whole drugging and deceit thing.
Each woman’s sob story about abuse and resentment brought me back to a 1990 incident: A middle-aged female friend interrupted a group of adolescent girls fawning over Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman .
There’s a long line of movies about strippers and sex workers— Player’s Club , Showgirls , Magic Mike , and Pretty Woman to name a few.
But it’s also unlike anything Scorsese has made, relishing in a lively feminine energy, the same way that Michael Bay combined Scorsese with his signature testosterone-pumped gym rat energy in 2013’s underrated Pain & Gain.
Reminiscent of better films like Pain & Gain and I, Tonya , this stretch packs a long-teased energy and wit — that promptly disappears as quickly as it arrived.
Hustlers is like if The Wolf of Wall Street had a baby with Dead Presidents , but was high on Pain & Gain during the pregnancy.
Striptease with Demi Moore is a non-starter, for her ass, although enviable, didn’t possess any powers—evil or good—that I could detect.
Those with long memories might remember Demi Moore in Striptease (1996) and Elizabeth Berkley in the unfairly maligned Showgirls (1995), with which Hustlers bears some similarity, though only in its flash and dazzle.
Not unlike seeing Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman for the first time, the experience of watching Hustlers is akin to having a veil lifted from your eyes.
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Surely, it’s better than Showgirls, which featured Elizabeth Berkley’s evil ass.
Those with long memories might remember Demi Moore in Striptease (1996) and Elizabeth Berkley in the unfairly maligned Showgirls (1995), with which Hustlers bears some similarity, though only in its flash and dazzle.
What follows plays like a lively page-turner that grafts some of Martin Scorsese's trademark verve and paranoia into a narrative that recalls Sofia Coppola's underrated “The Bling Ring.”
I thought a lot about Sofia Coppola’s more recent works, namely The Bling Ring , in how Scafaria synthesizes pop culture into its own subgenre of reality.