American Hustle

March 29 – April 3
American Hustle
Sat 3/29 6:30; Sun 3/30 2:30 & 7:30; Mon 3/31 9:00; Tue 4/1 6:30; Wed 4/2 9:00; Thur 4/3 6:30

Dir: David O. Russell / 2013 / US / 138 min / DCP
Director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) has assembled a powerhouse cast, including Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jeremy Renner, for this fun comedy crime drama very loosely based on the Abscam scandal. Bale and Adams are a con artist team whose love story is complicated by Bale’s wife (the loud and unpredictable Lawrence) and Cooper’s narcissistic FBI agent. The plot twists and double-crosses allow for the actors to be witty scam artists one minute and sad dupes the next. Adams stuns as a former stripper who adopts a British accent and adds ‘Lady’ to her name to fool her marks (and herself) into believing she is someone else. Robert De Niro and Louis C. K. are well cast in their supporting roles and Renner shows his range as the naive Mayor of Camden, a welcome change from his usual tough guy roles. Richard Corliss of Time magazine enthuses, “Reveling in its ‘70s milieu and in the eternal abrasion of sexy women and covetous men, American Hustle is an urban eruption of flat-out fun—the sharpest, most exhilarating comedy in years.”