Make no mistake American Hustle is an actors' movie. Another couple of power hitters, Christian Bale and Amy Adams, bring their A-games, and rounding out the quintet is little Jeremy Renner, packing a pompadour almost as tall as he is. The film reunites the Academy Award-winning team of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. One film is set in the 1970s, and the other in the vicious 1980s, but both deal with the human impulse to always want more than the other guy.Īmerican Hustle is the first out of the gate. Russell's American Hustle and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street. The idea has also been a generous source of inspiration for filmmakers. Whether you think greed is good, or greed is God, it's certainly been with us a very long time - from Mammon to the one per cent, and so on.
This piece originally appeared on The Tyee.
