Film Review - Hustlers (15)

The game is rigged. And it does not reward people who play by the rules.

 

Inspired by a New York magazine article by journalist Jessica Pressler, Hustlers tells one of the stranger stories to come out of the 2008 stock market crash. And with an ensemble cast as diverse as it is starry, it's one of the autumn cinema season's genuine surprises. That's partly due to a barnstorming performance from Jennifer Lopez as veteran exotic dancer Ramona, a woman who deals with the realities of the financial crisis in cool and ruthless fashion. Lopez is good - possibly better than ever before - but she's not all this based-on-fact movie has to offer.

Constance Wu (of Crazy Rich Asians success) takes lead duties in the role of Destiny, naive 'new girl' at a high-end New York strip club. She's chiefly working to support the beloved grandmother who has raised her, but struggles to survive there. Then she's wowed - and wouldn't we all be on some level - at the dynamism and attitude of Lopez' experienced pole dancer. Ramona takes Destiny under her wing, teaching her all the right moves on and off the pole, so that she can thrive in that testosterone-thick environment. But the 2008 crash curtails everyone's party, from the club's Wall Street trader clients to the girls themselves. When financial hardship bites, Destiny, Ramona and their fellow-workers turn creatively criminal in order to keep themselves afloat.

 

Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria Hustlers is, I'd say, a notable step forward in female-led Hollywood movies. It's bold and brash with its own voice, using the sleazy mileau of the strip club in a way we've never seen before. Instead of the leering male perspective of innumerable cop and gangster flicks, we get the girls' perspective - no less coy, but a lot more nuanced. This is a tough, unsavoury workplace for sure, but it also has its own unique energy and tawdry glamour, while a bawdy changing-room camaraderie throws the characters into relief as fiery, often hilarious flesh-and-blood individuals. These are women with whole lives outside - struggling with issues of rent and relationships and family - and this is the graft they do to stay in the game.

A relative newcomer to the director's role Scafaria shows a virtuosity with the camera that's reminiscent of Martin Scorsese in Goodfellas or Casino. She also edits her story to clever effect a la The Wolf of Wall Street, making the most of its conventional flashback framework. (Julia Stiles plays the Pressler journalist figure, interviewing Destiny in-depth about her stripper-turned-felon experiences.) And the use of music is great - a pumping dance soundtrack intercut counter-intuitively with bursts of Frederic Chopin.

Scafaria draws out great performaces too from her ensemble. Wu is a great anchor as the ingenue who finds her criminal mojo while still clinging to her conscience, while Lopez grabs the opportunity as tightly as her dance pole to play a tough, complex character. (Every gravity-defying move was hers, I've fact-checked it.) But it's the group dynamic that's perhaps most impressive. While the characters played by the likes of Keke Palmer and Lili Reinhart are relatively sketchy compared to our central duo, together they make a remarkably convincing group of friends. Whether these women are bantering backstage, plotting to access their marks' credit accounts or swapping Christmas gifts, they're never less than documentary-level real.

If there's a downside it's that the con-story is a bit overlong, with a degree of rinse and repeat in what we see on screen. Nor does the climax achieve quite the level of drama you might hope, say that of last year's Widows. However this film achieves around five times' the spirit of Ocean's 8, with feisty, self-empowered characters you'll enjoy hanging out with, however reprehensible their choices. Plus it critiques 21st Century western capitalism nicely. Not bad for a low-key off-season comedy drama we'd not really been waiting for. As walks on the wild side go, Hustlers is one you should definitely consider taking.

 (Director Lorene Scafaria tests the pole.)

Gut Reaction: A lot more involvment and a lot more laughter than I'd been expecting. And goggle-eyes at one point. Speaking of which...

Memorable Moment: J-Lo's pole moves. If I said otherwise and then you saw the film, you'd know me for a liar.

Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. A raucous heist-comedy with a human side, it's pushed to its high score by great direction and some scintillating ensemble acting. The 'true story' aspect is fascinating too.

Film Review - Widows (15)

Our husbands aren't coming back. We're on our own.

UK Filmic Forays readers of a certain age will remember Widows, the hard-boiled '80s TV crime drama that Lynda La Plante adapted from her own novel. Director Steve McQueen certainly recalls it; those gutsy female leads remained with him for three decades, so that this new version of the story has become his surprising follow-up to 12 Years a Slave. He shrewdly brought Gone Girl/Sharp Objects writer Gillian Flynn on board too, to create the screenplay. Their collaboration - like you might have anticipated - has forged a riveting crime thriller with added depth and contemporary relevance.

The big-screen Widows relocates to modern-day Chicago and plunges us straight into the blood and bullets of a heist gone terribly wrong. It's one from which none of the thieves will survive. Veronica Rawlings, wife of the criminal group's leader, is still reeling from the loss of her husband (a cameoing Liam Neeson), when she discovers a second harsh truth. The robbers have stolen from local gangster-turned-politician Jamal Manning, and he's demanding that the debt be paid in full by those they left behind. Fast running out of time, Veronica (Viola Davis) enlists the aid of two more women widowed by the heist and pitches a daring idea - they will work through the plans for the next robbery their late husbands had lined up and carry it out themselves. 

Widows is a heist movie the way HBO's The Wire was a crime drama, i.e. it's that and vastly more. The genius begins with Flynn's screen-writing - she tells the story of a complex heist with smart economy, while connecting the women's narrative to that of warring local politicians. Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell play two generations of a mayoral dynasty, whose reign is being challenged by the widows' nemesis Manning (Brian Tyree Henry). Veronica and co are snared somewhere in between. The minor miracle is that all these characters and their stories have room to expand, achieving a degree of complexity within the tightly plotted framework. 

Add to that McQueen's hold on the story - constantly challenging our expectations, with every shot crafted to deepen appreciation of character and location. Under his steely gaze Chicago itself comes into sharp focus with its ethnic and financial divides. But he also knows how to tell a good crime story, making the most of all the surprises in Flynn's devious script. And he lets the camera linger on the faces of his actors, capturing every flicker of emotion as events push towards their crisis.

There are no off-note performances here, just excellent ones. Eighty-eight-year-old Robert Duvall has power and ferocity as veteran politician Tom Mulligan, while Daniel Kaluuya (so amiable in Get Out) is properly scary as Jamal's psychopathic brother.

Farrell and Henry impress too, but as with the '80s TV show, this is all about the women. Davis, who carved out that Best Supporting Oscar in Fences, is a powerhouse here as the formidable Veronica. She's hurting, scared and vulnerable, but she also radiates strength as the widows' rallying point. Michelle Rodriguez tempers her usual toughness as the one mother in the group, while Cynthia Erivo (sensational in Bad Times at the El Royale) has bags of attitude as the one non-widow enlisted to help them. And rounding out the team is The Night Manager's Elizabeth Debicki, whose journey as serial-victim Alice is perhaps the most striking of the movie. Watching these gals pick up where their husbands left off is nothing short of enthralling.

As a heist story Widows doesn't let down - the central set-piece is as taut (fuelled by Hans Zimmer's score) as you might hope. But it's also a fascinating study of social conflict along lines of gender, race and economics. And at its heart is the bond of necessity between these four desperate, disparate female anti-heroes. They're not good-girls, but you'll come to see things from their viewpoint, and by the end you'll be rooting for them every hard-fought, potentially disastrous step of the way.

Gut Reaction: Locked in from the heart-pounding opening scenes, then regularly blind-sided - by unexpected plot curves and great moments of performances.

Where Are the Women?: See the film's title. Also its amazing writer. And look out for Jacki Weaver's amazing cameo as Alice's mother.

Ed's Verdict: 9/10. Intelligent multi-layered movie-making that demands to be seen again. The lesson? That with the right people doing it, a riveting genre flick and a work of art can be one and the same thing.