American Hustle & Saving Mr. Banks

American Hustle

I read an interesting story about director David O. Russell. It had to do with the fact that on this movie, American Hustle, he let his actors improv so much. The story has Christian Bale pointing out to his director that the way they just improvised an scene utterly changes the plot of the movie at a later point. To which, O. Russell supposedly replied (and this isn't a direct quote), "I don't care about plot. I care about characters." And perhaps that's really all you need to know about American Hustle, a movie that is so superficial, that cares so little about its plot, that it's utterly a disappointing mess instead of the masterpiece I was hoping for.

American Hustle is a fictionalized version of Abscam, in which the FBI enlisted real life criminals (con men) to help set up politicians in order to arrest the bigger fish. In O. Russell's story, Christian Bale and Amy Adams are the mid-level cons who go after mostly desperate men down on their times with a scheme in which the men give them a non-refundable $5000 deposit to take their money to some "connections" in London, who are supposedly going to turn their money in to $50,000. Of course, that never happens. All of this is going great until they try to con the wrong man, in this case, undercover FBI agent Richie (Bradley Cooper) who arrests them and then enlists their help. Their initial plan is to bring down a family man mayor (Jeremy Renner) who wants nothing more than to help build up the job market of his town - Atlantic City. This is all well and good, until Richie gets greedy and wants to go after even bigger fish. Then there's Jennifer Lawrence as Bale's unpredictable, unstable wife.

So, in a nutshell, that's the plot. The plot isn't so much bad, as it is too glossy for its own good. O. Russell is trying to make his version of Goodfellas, which there isn't anything wrong with. If you want to rip off a movie, you might as well rip off one of the masters at his best. But the problem is, the movie relies far too much on looking cool, with great actors playing outlandish against type characters, none of whom feel real in the least. For focusing so much on characters, these guys are more like caricatures. I'm not trying to say the movie is bad, because it isn't, necessarily. It's a good movie, it's just a disappointing one. I've been looking forward to this movie for months and it was such a let down for me.

The performances are (almost) all spectacular. In a movie starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, it's as much a shock to me as it might be to anyone else, but best in show goes to Bradley Cooper. His out of control, cocky, power hungry FBI agent is so wildly entertaining, that you can't keep your eyes off of him. Adams is fantastic as well, slipping in and out of different characters with such ease (and those low cut dresses!!! Girl looks gorgeous!). Renner is fine but his role is so limited that it barely matters. Bale is great, as usually, playing the second most outlandish characters, a role that could have easily slipped into over the top, craziness. But Bale is such a great actor that this never happens.

Now here is where my review will become very, VERY unpopular. I don't think Jennifer Lawrence is as good of an actress as everyone thinks she is. I don't think she's a bad actress, just not deserving of quite so much praise. Just think about this fact: Come March, she's going to be a three time Oscar nominee (with one win) in just four years. That's INSANE. Here are some people (off the top of my head) who have never even been nominated: Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Kirsten Dunst, Donald Sutherland, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Kevin Bacon! But that's besides the point. I think this movie just proves my point, because Lawrence isn't good in it. In fact, I think she's most of the reason why I didn't care for the movie. She, like Bale, is so over the top, that it's distracting. Unlike Bale, Lawrence doesn't quite have the chops to reel it in, keep it from going over that line into campiness. So, it just makes me want to roll my eyes anytime she's on screen, which takes me completely out of the movie, which is not something you want to happen.

It doesn't matter what I have to say anyway. This movie will keep getting nominated for all kinds of awards. Sure, the movie is greatly entertaining at times, but it's no Oscar worthy movie, in my opinion. Jennifer Lawrence will probably win a book end for last year's Oscar. This is a movie about conning people, after all, and maybe the best con of all is conning the audience that it's a better movie than it actually is.

Grade: B-

Saving Mr. Banks

Just a few words about Saving Mr. Banks - it's a nice movie. I don't watch enough nice movies, and that's sort of a shame. The story is about Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson, killing it!) who very reluctantly flies to Los Angeles to meet with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) about selling him the rights to her books. However, she is VERY opinionated. Anyway, the scenes with Hanks and Thompson are absolutely wonderful. The movie suffers from pacing problems - too many flashbacks, not evenly dispersed. It also suffers from the fact that the flashbacks are sort of on the boring side. I mean, they serve a purpose, to further the story along, but they also are not nearly as entertaining as watching Hanks and Thompson go toe to toe. I could watch that forever.

Grade: B