American Hustle

David O. Russell’s American Hustle is a con plot, wrapped in a couple love triangles and then further complicated by the mob.  Honestly, the whole point A to point B can get a little confusing, but the film easily keeps a captive audience on board every moment due to fantastic performances by great actors who breathe amazing life and quirk into their characters.

First off, we have Irving (Christian Bale).  He’s the epicenter, the main con man, experienced and damn good at what he does.  After years of running multiple scams on his own, he meets Sydney (Amy Adams).  She is up for the adventure and thrill of a good con and brings her own touch to a new phony lone business.  She and Irving begin a passionate relationship, even though he is already married.  His wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) is an unpredictable woman with a young son who spends her time tanning, painting her nails and doing other frivolous things.  She knows Irving is having an affair, the two women just haven’t met, yet.

When Irving and Sydney’s bogus loans are busted by an FBI agent, Richie (Bradley Cooper), he makes a deal to release them if they help him arrest a few politicians.  Richie wants to entrap the mayor of Camden, New Jersey, Politio (Jeremy Renner).  Irving brings in a friend to pose as a Sheikh looking for potential investments in America, specifically with Polito.  But Richie’s over-eagerness nearly screws up the whole deal.  Thankfully, he has Irving and Sydney to help him out, but little does Richie realize that they are playing him, while Sydney is seducing him.

As Politio is making friends with a phony Sheikh and going out to dinner with Irving and his wife, Irving starts to have second thoughts about the whole operation.  It becomes a moral dilemma for him, seeing that Politio really is a nice family man just trying to make his city better.  And when Irving finds himself getting involved in the mob, and his wife starts talking too much, things might get out of control.

There is so much to enjoy about this film even if a con plot doesn’t sound like your cup of tea.  Each actor brings charm and has their own great moments, including Louis C.K. in a great minor role as Richie’s boss.  Though they may not be truly good guys, each character is so charismatic that you can’t help but love them, even be on their side to some extent.  If you’re a fan of late 70s fashion, the wardrobes and hairstyles will delight.  It’s rather hilarious to see Amy Adams dancing at a disco, Bradley Cooper in curlers and Christian Bale meticulously perfect his strange comb-over.

American Hustle is tied with Gravity for receiving the most Oscar nominations this year, a total of ten.  Among them are Best Picture, costume design, film editing, production design and original screenplay.  David O. Russell received his second consecutive nomination for best director.  And among the actors, Christian Bale for lead actor, Amy Adams for lead actress, Bradley Cooper for supporting actor and Jennifer Lawrence for supporting actress.  It is not often a film lands nominations in each acting category, but this film sure deserves it.

My personal favorite scene really has nothing to do with the whole plot, but is just a hilarious moment with Irving’s ditzy wife using an early microwave, or as they call it, the science oven.  We see her in the kitchen, talking to herself in a mocking voice about how she was warned not to put any metal in the science oven.  Psh, what’s the harm right?  Then she tosses in something in aluminum foil, and boom, you know what happens.  But her breezy, whatever attitude suddenly replaced by instructing her son to get the other fire extinguisher is so flawless and hilarious, I can’t let it go.  If Jennifer Lawrence wins her second Oscar for American Hustle, it will be because she blew up the science oven.

“Bring something into this house that’s gonna take all the nutrition out of our food and then light our house on fire?  Thank God for me.”

The Hurt Locker

I would dare to say that I’ve reviewed close to a hundred war movies on this blog.  Most of those deal with WWII, usually with a sense of pride and valor.  Coming in second would be Vietnam, with a more jaded and anti-war agenda.  Then there were some dealing with WWI, the Civil War and other wars spread throughout the history of the world.  Until The Hurt Locker, there was not one good movie made about the war going on in Iraq.

In a way, it seems that a typical war film has gone out of style at the Oscars.  Since 1998’s Saving Private Ryan, the only other nominated film focusing on soldiers in action was Letters From Iwo Jima, and that took on the Japanese perspective of WWII.  More often, we find war just to be the background and setting for twenty-first century films, like The Pianist or Atonement.

What I’m trying to say is that it takes a leap of faith and some real balls to make gritty modern war film these days.  Those balls belong to Kathryn Bigelow, who fearlessly brings us a story of men on an army bomb squad in an Iraqi city.  There, everyone is a possible enemy and nearly anything could be a possible bomb.  We quickly sense how nerve-wracking this life is.

It may look like fun at first, playing with the cool little robot to get a look at the possible explosive from a safe distance, but we quickly realize how things can go dangerously wrong in a flash.  The term kill-zone is used in the most accurate sense.  It’s scary to think of that as just part of a normal on-the-job vocabulary.

The Hurt Locker does some of the best moments of suspense in recent film history.  Paraphrasing Hitchcock, it is not the sound of the bang that brings suspense, it’s the anticipation.  Over and over throughout the film, we’re watching men defuse bombs.  That in itself screams suspense, but add in a reckless character, and his crew scouting out onlookers on balconies and rooftops wondering if any of them hold the detonator.  You won’t be able to take your eyes off the screen and won’t even realize that you’re holding your breath.

Men like Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) realize the constant danger far too well and becomes obsessed with the fact that he could be dead at any moment.  It’s not healthy to dwell on the risks of this job too much.  On the other hand, it doesn’t help that Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) puts himself in unnecessary danger.

James focuses on being on the brink of demise in a different way.  He thrives on it.  Like an artist in the zone, he is at his finest when he is trying to figure out how to defuse a bomb.  Simply put, he is a real expert about things that are meant to blow up and kill him.  There’s a feeling of swagger and power about him and he loves wearing the padded suit.  Besides taking rough chances, he is an excellent soldier.  Though it’s what he is best at, James isn’t the kind of guy who cares about medals or rank.  Under his bed, he keeps bits of bombs he’s defused, “things that nearly killed me” he calls them.  Back home he has baby son and ex-wife, those are the things he doesn’t know how to handle, so he keeps coming back to Iraq for more.

“The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.”