The last time David O'Russell directed Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence was the Brilliant Silver Linings Playbook, one of the best films of 2012. So I went into American Hustle with high hopes. Unfortunately my expectations were not met.
The basic idea behind this film, is that everybody deceives someone in order to survive, even if that is only themselves. The film follows a very elaborate series of cons and seems to lose its way. The story plods very slowly, and the over two hours felt more like four, by the two thirds mark I was getting desperate for the film to end, which is a shame, as the final half hour is probably the best of the film, but by that point I had lost all interest.
The characters although they have plenty of depth, have nothing likeable about them, which means I didn't really care what happened to them, and have no emotional involvement with them whatsoever. It's on a par with The counsellor, one of the worst films of 2013 where I couldn't care less about what happens to the lead characters.
That said the acting performances are pretty decent, especially from Jennifer Lawrence and Jeremy Renner, but quality acting alone does not make make a good film.
A disappointing start to the year 4/10
No comments:
Post a Comment