Short version – A well made movie that I didn’t enjoy much.

American Hustle is a fictionalized telling of Abscam, the FBI operation to entrap politicians into corruption charges in the late 1970’s.  It tells the story of Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), a small-time con-man, Sidney Prosser (Amy Adams), his mistress and business partner, and Richie Dimaso (Bradley Cooper), an FBI agent who forces the other two into his schemes. Jeremy Renner plays Carmine Polito, a New Jersey politician who is the first victim of DiMaso’s megalomania, and Jennifer Lawrence plays Rosalyn Rosenfeld, Irving’s wife.

The casting for this movie was excellent.  There was no real effort in believing that each of the characters were portrayed exactly the way they should have been.  Cooper’s DiMaso is the perfect over-reaching government goon, high on power.  Lawrence’s portrayal of a manipulative wife is spot-on.  All of the actors in the movie are established and talented, and I don’t think anyone gave less than full effort.

The soundtrack for the movie, done by Danny Elfman, is mostly popular music from the 1960’s and 1970’s.  Some of it gave me that “Hey, I like that tune” feeling, while others made me cringe.  However, all of the music fit perfectly with the scene and direction in which they were used.

Costumes were actually a high point of the movie.  Every inch of cloth was used to show just how cheap and tacky the characters wearing them were, and where the clothes were tasteful, so were the characters.

As for the plot and pacing, it could have used a bit of work.  The movie comes in at 138 minutes, and there were a lot of scenes that I think could have been trimmed.  The movie starts slow, and while there is quite a bit of tension after the mid-point, it’s a thinker, not a doer.  After an hour, I was looking at my watch and wondering how much longer the movie would last.

Like I said before, I didn’t really enjoy this movie, but it was a good movie.  The only character that I connected with was Carmine, the New Jersey politician, and that was only because he was basically a good guy who let himself get mixed up in something smarmy and I pitied him.  The rest of the characters were pathetic.  Honestly, I was hoping for some sort of catastrophic die-off in the end.

If you’ve seen Goodfellas or Summer of Sam, you’ve seen the look and feel of this movie, and if you liked them, you should at least find this movie interesting.  Just like those two movies, however, this is an adult movie for adults.  I wouldn’t suggest this movie for even teenagers, unless you want to explain some of the more sordid details.  There is a lot of language in this movie, and a few sex scenes, but other than extremely low-cut blouses made with thin, sheer material, I don’t remember any nudity.

I’ll give this one a B-.  It’s a good movie, it just wasn’t for me.