Film Review: AMERICAN HUSTLE

Some poor guys have to work at curly hair.

In a year of superb movies, "American Hustle" is another great one. You'll have fun, I promise, just as long as you're the kind of person who can sit back and relax, go with the flow and hang loose. Forget asking dumb questions like, "What's going on?" It doesn't really matter, and besides, the film just might win this year's Best Picture award, and then you'll definitely want in.

Impressive dramatic performances and the occasional laugh-out-loud moment are accompanied by a nostalgic score of all your favorite songs, or at least all of mine. The story is loosely based on Abscam, an actual FBI sting involving senators, congressmen and a fake Sheik of Arabee back in the '70s, so you get to see what life was like back in the '70s. It's always amusing to see how far we've come in terms of the hair, the cars, the clothes, the furnishings, and--worth repeating-- the hair; the opening scene, even before the credits appear, showing how to fairly effectively hide your bald spot, is at once hysterical and awful.

A jumbled plot is thankfully half-explained by a continual voice-over narrative spoken by different characters at different times. Besides the sting, reminiscent of Sinatra and his Rat Pack, there are lots of sexy-ish scenes, mostly involving Amy Adams showing off what are supposed to be her voluptuous breasts peeking out of low-cut dresses but look more like those pancakes they bring you with moo shu pork. Anyway, she's definitely "hot" and shows a lot of skin, as does Jennifer Lawrence, the other "babe" who sadly seems more like a "baby" but who my husband said had the better breasts. Both male leads, played by Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper, never disappoint, and in fact at times stun you with their brilliance.

I'm not really sure what happened every little second, or really a lot of the time, so I'm going back to find out. It's that good.