That was such a fun surprise that I wasn’t going to mention it for fear of spoiling someone - but I guess this is the “seen it” thread anyway. Yeah, when he started talking to the “Sheik” in Arabic I thought “how they hell are they going to be able to walk away from that table without getting shot in the head now?”
It would be if there were even one line in the movie saying that he paid anybody off. There wasn’t that I remember. I’m willing to be shown I was wrong. It may have been cut at some point, because it’s not absolutely necessary to the real plot. Just a small thing that bothered me.
I don’t think it was a Ponzi scheme. I think he basically just took a non-refundable fee to work “really hard” to get a loan approved through his London office. He would cash the check, delay and obstruct for as long as he could, and then say “sorry, I did my best but the loan was turned down”. You would make sure not to con someone with the balls or muscle to fight back if they felt they had been conned.
There is an article about the man Bale’s character was “inspired” by here: American Hustle: the man behind the scam that describes some of the scams.
And, to add, these scams have certainly not gone away: http://www.bbb.org/us/article/bbb-warns-consumers-to-avoid-advance-fee-loan-scams-using-green-dot-moneypaks-34911
I agree that the reason to see the movie is for the performances - these people were really acting - but I disagree about Jeremy Renner. He played a guy with a swooped pompadour up to **here **and made me believe him. Right up there with the other main performances (in fact, I would say Cooper’s performance was a bit of a disappointment - I felt like it was the same guy from Silver Linings).
The one element that I never could figure out -
is how Christian Bale got away with his original scam for more than five minutes. He takes money, gives nothing back - and sits in the same office to greet the next sucker. Why wasn’t he being pursued by guys with baseball bats? They were defined as being desperate. They knew where he was. Not to mention that somebody obviously went to the FBI. How was this supposed to work?I don’t know, but it apparently worked in real life - Melvin Weinberg really did that, in that way. His company - London Investors - had a brick and mortar presence.
(now I see a whole subthread has spun off this one topic).
Nitpick - it’s spelled “Bechdel”. And, Jennifer Lawrence and the Mayor’s wife talk about the smell of nail polish, so there is that!
Don’t they only talk about nail polish with other men in the scene? Doesn’t the Bechdel test require no men in the scene?
Also overshadowed by the big names was my favorite performance in the movie - Jeremy Renner’s wife. I enjoyed her so much that I hung around for the credits to see who played her, and was amused, but not really surprised to find that she’s an actress I’ve seen hundreds of times, Elisabeth Röhm, best known for Law & Order.
“Is this because I’m a Lesbian?”
Good. Solidly good. Not great. If it wasn’t David O. Russell, I’d have had gone into the theater with less excited anticipation and may have enjoyed it more (similar to my experience a week prior with Inside Llewyn Davis- solidly good, but not special by Coen Brothers standards).
I’ve loved many of Amy Adams’ performances. In this, I thought she was “good”, but that’s it.
I’m losing interest in Christian Bale, he’s really getting tiresome. He is a truly talented actor, but he is far too precious about his work- to the point of being entirely humorless, which in this film in particular I think really hurt.
Thank God for Jennifer Lawrence and Louis C.K.!
If Jennifer Lawrence wasn’t the best thing in this film then Louis C.K. was.
Unlike everyone else in this Thread, I actually thought Jeremy Renner was well cast and did a fine job (not nearly as wonderful as Jennifer Lawrence and Louis C.K., but those two set an extremely high bar!)
It’s official. I Heart Huckabees is still my favorite David O. Russell film and I fear it may prove to be the last interesting thing he’ll have ever done.
The Fighter
Silver Linings Playbook
American Hustle
Very good films, every one of them. Solid well done films. But not nearly as interesting as Spanking the Monkey, Three Kings, or the brilliantly off the wall I Heart Huckabees. Even Flirting With Disaster stands out as an excellent screwball comedy that maintains at least a few auteur-specific quirks. The three most recent films all feel like skilled “Director for Hire” works. It feels like Russell is doing penance for his failure with the messily aborted production Nailed that was meant to be his follow-up to I Heart Huckabees but was never completed.
This is what I was about to post. 
And while their exchange about nail polish seemed frivolous, the fact that the Lawrence character used a special hard-to-find type of nail polish did turn out to have some relevance to the plot.
No. That is not an element of the original Bechdel test, and while some people have tweaked the rules a bit (e.g. requiring that both women be named) I’ve personally never heard a “no men in the scene” variant.
I agree Renner was miscast, not because he didn’t do a good job but because he was (or looked) too young. When his family was lined up along the staircase at the end, he looked about five years older than his oldest child.
Amy Adams was fantastic- she displayed such a mix of emotions in some of the scenes (after the argument/kiss from J Lawrence; in the bathroom stall with Cooper) and was entirely believable the entire time.
I was a little distracted by Bale’s hair/glasses/facial hair, but thought he also knocked it out of the park.
However, there were a few times that I found myself going “wait- what’s going on now?”. That may just have been my mindset the day I watched it, though.
Saw it yesterday. IMO incredibly well written and well acted, but I just wasn’t all that invested in the story.
With regards to the phone thing, I thought it was pretty clear that was Louis CK’s home number, and Richie had never been to his home before. You can see in the flashback scene that it wasn’t an office - they were pointing guns at each other in his bathroom.
Saw this a few nights ago. Really enjoyed it as light entertainment, but was disappointed ultimately because it didn’t live up to the hype.
I found Bradley Cooper’s character especially distracting - his outbursts didn’t feel believable in any way, and his assault of his boss seemed way out of character. I get that Richie was supposed to be desperate but he also seemed ambitious and attacking his boss just didn’t make any sense.
I haven’t seen anything slamming his performance in any other reviews, so maybe it’s just me, but I couldn’t stand the guy and I usually don’t mind him.
I enjoyed all of the other performances, especially Amy Adams’. Jennifer Lawrence was fun, as always, but really, ANY actress could’ve played that role - it’s not like it required a lot of skill.
Didn’t you see him taking discreet snorts every now and then? I think he was more cocaine than man by the end of the film.
Plus she has a nice ass.
Just saw it. Christian Bale seemed to me to be channeling Rob Reiner’s looks and voice as Micheal Stivic from All in the Family.
It took me till the restaurant scene to recognize Jack Huston (Richard from Boardwalk Empire).
I don’t think so. In the film and this picture Lawrence definitely is shown as taller and looking downward at Adams.
What I think I’m remembering is a reverse angle showing Adams’ face. Even in your picture, she doesn’t look five inches shorter, though.
Probably just cheating with the angles so that her face was framed properly. Just a minor thing, but it caught my eye.
Also, there’s the female wire clerk in the FBI who is befriended by Amy Adams’ character, although I can’t swear we actually see them have a complete conversation on-screen.
Anyhow, I agree with the overall conclusion of this thread… great amazing performances, lots of good scenes, but overall somewhat forgettable.
My Mom saw it.