American Hustle
Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley
Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Robert De Niro
Director: David O. Russell
129 mins
Director: David O. Russell
129 mins
With Bradley Cooper in pink hair curlers and Christian Bale's giant pot belly and glued-down comb-over – we’d need little else to haul in our interest – but American Hustle has a great deal more to offer. This is a film about small-time con artists re-inventing themselves through a huge scam - in which the FBI hire a fake sheik to trap US Congressmen on the take – but you’ll stop smiling occasionally just to revel in some superb acting.
David O. Russell's marvellously balanced film has just enough over the top excess so that the artifice becomes part of the joke, without allowing the 1970's cartoon colours to become too camp.
Set in 1978, the film begins with Bale's character carefully arranging his hysterical tonsorial construction before entering a suite at the Plaza. He plays Irving Rosenfeld, who runs a dry-cleaning business plus a sideline of scamming people desperately in debt, with the empty promise of a loan. His success in making this sleazeball even remotely likeable is quite an accomplishment. Irving begins an affair with Sydney Prosser (Adams) a former stripper who adopts a polite English accent and renames herself Lady Edith to join his adventure.
In one of the film's many buoyant set pieces, Irving and Sydney stare deeply into each other's eyes as they stand in the centre of a dry-cleaning carousel, clothes in plastic bags rotating around them as their romance develops. She also picks up a new wardrobe, and from then on every dress becomes her signature outfit as the necklines plunge to her navel.
Whilst Irving and Lady E. are not particularly bothered by the idea of his wife back at home, that wife may actually be the film's secret weapon. As Rosalyn, mother of a young son Irving adopted, Lawrence gleefully steals almost every scene she's in. The hair, the red nails and the loud voice, could have made the character too simple or caricatured. But Lawrence shows us the insecurity and fear beneath Rosalyn's insistent bravado. "She was the Picasso of passive-aggressive karate," Irving says. "She had me like nobody else." I’ve heavily criticised some of Jennifer Lawrence’s previous work, but as you read this, if you hold your ear close to your chosen device's screen, the evident crunching noise is me eating my words. She is stupendous in this film.
When FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Cooper) -- as lowly in the FBI as Irving is in the crime world -- uncovers Irving and Edith's scam, he coerces them into helping him trap bigger crooks, not to mention politicians.
In the film's other scene-stealing role, Jeremy Renner, in powder-blue suits and a giant bouffant hairstyle, plays Camden mayor and family man Carmine Polito, one of the targets who also becomes Irving's friend. Renner shows us just who Polito is: in the tradition of corrupt officials across America, he lines his pockets while genuinely trying to improve his city, whilst facing a dilemma in the battle between friendship and self-preservation.
The scams twist and turn, yet the film glides along, punctuated by some terrific set pieces. One is a gaudy party where the FBI's Mexican fake sheik rubs elbows with gangsters, and Rosalyn encounters Edith. In another -- not essential in any way but so enjoyable it's show-stopping -- Lawrence does her housework while belting out Live and Let Die - whilst the inevitable disco sequences pump out the eternally magnificent Donna Summer’s I Feel Love and the staggeringly ace original version by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes of Don’t Leave Me This Way.
In a year of so many spectacular films, this is one of the best, with charismatic performances throughout - including De Niro's best in decades. It's a truthful comedy about all-American deception.
ANCHOR MAN 2:
THE LEGEND CONTINUES
THE LEGEND CONTINUES
Cast: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Meagan Good, Steve Carrell, Vince Vaughn, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Harrison Ford
Directed by Adam McKay
119 mins
The whole thing is in a predictably similar vein to the initial outing, as all the nonsensical tomfoolery with hit and miss attempts at wit and media satire are thrown out in the hope that some will stick - but it’s really only a very broad comedy full of marginally amusing individuals in a tiresomely endless sequence of comedic one-upmanship. Throw in racism, misogyny plus a generous helping of dismal, peurile idiocy and you've got the complete mix.
Years have passed, and Ron has now lost his wife (Christina Applegate) to her promotion, and his boss (Harrison Ford) has chased him off-screen thus fading him from the public eye. However, in comes cable tv as his last chance saloon – this time on a graveyard slot with a 24 hour news channel - which provides him with another shot at fame.
His tiresome trio of chums/actors return, all equally mediocre in both role and portrayal, each irritatingly smug in their laddish pack mentality - and even the climactic scene featuring an array of high profile names falls flat and fizzles the whole sorry exercise out and into a sorry end.
If you’re a Ferrell fan you’ll probably salivate at the prospect of more vintage Burgundy, but realists who don’t need x-ray specs to see through the transparency of this Emperor’s pristine clobber will know better.
August:Osage County
Cast: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Julianne
Nicholson, Margo Martindale, Juliette Lewis, Abigail Breslin, Ewan McGregor,
Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Cooper, Dermot Mulroney, Misty Upham, Sam Shepard
Director: John Wells
130 mins
Yet again Meryl Streep outdoes herself as Violet,
the acid-tongued matriarch of the Weston family - as the fraught relationships,
animosities and hidden secrets of all the members reach a crescendo, when
everyone meets up at the funeral of her late husband Beverly.Director: John Wells
130 mins
One of the three Weston sisters, Ivy (Julianne Nicholson), has remained by Violet's side in Osage County, and the two other daughters, Barbara (Julia Roberts, sharing the screen with Streep for the first time) and Karen (Juliette Lewis), return after heading off to escape Violet's unrelenting criticism that has become Ivy's sole burden. Also joining the dramatically bereaved Violet are her sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale), her husband Charles (Chris Cooper), and their disappointment of a son, Little Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch).
The Weston Family reunion is a boiling Southern brew as the cackling family members reunite and reignite the old tensions that drove them apart. The explosive family drama has a sense of claustrophobia as director John Wells uses the space of the film’s limited setting to drench the atmosphere in the suffocating heat of Violet’s grand, old and stuffy estate. Wells makes a notable step forward with his second feature following The Company of Men by providing a skillful ensemble-driven film that is fuelled by uniformly excellent performances and a cracker of a script. August: Osage County resembles black comedy as the speed of the delivery and nastiness of the dialogue fires cynicism at gut-wrenchingly relentless speed.
Gathering at the dining table and being subjected to the scorn Violet dishes out with relish provides clarity on why so much of her family resents her. Streep’s award-calibre turn as Violet is a belter of a part, as she is battling a host of demons. She's addicted to painkillers, which amplify her volatile mood and penchant for verbal cruelty. The painkillers are a prescription for the mouth cancer brought on by years of heavy smoking, although the tumours could really be a by-product of all the toxic venom erupting from her mouth.
Streep inhabits the awful woman with terrifying force. Unnervingly intimidating even behind the huge sunglasses she wears, Streep once again uses all the tools at her disposal to create a character which is full and real. Her gruff, deep accent rasps of Violet’s years of smoking and her Southern drawl rolls out every note of pleasure Violet derives in mocking her family members.
It has to be noted however that each member of the cast at least aspires to and in some cases matches Streep’s level. Julia Roberts delivers her best performance in years and it’s quite disarming to see her play a character so ominously unpleasant. Roberts isn’t afraid to let the audience turn against the character that seems like the target for sympathy when the sisters first return to Osage County. Barbara slowly devolves into the woman she detests, becoming meaner and meaner and more like her mother with each day she stays.
Standing out among the other players—all of whom deserve a paragraph of their own—are Nicholson and Martindale as Violet’s daughter and sister, respectively. Nicholson gets the tricky part of being on the receiving end of Violet’s dismay, but she provides an array of heartbreaking reactions as Violet cuts deeper and deeper into Ivy’s heart and her back. Martindale, on the other hand, is superb as the sister with the big personality. She has the comedic timing to match Streep and the range to show the pain Mattie Fae hides with all her self-effacing humour. Both actresses are highlights in one of the best ensembles of the year. British actors Ewan McGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch also score highly with lesser roles but equally significant performances – and Chris Cooper provides solid and highly able support.
This hugely enjoyable and cynical family saga concludes on a note of hope, by finding freedom in cutting ties and walking away when the damage is done. A happier ending would seem out of place with all that has gone before.
