American Hustle

AMERICAN HUSTLE begins with Irving Rosenfeld, a laundromat owner who makes his real living as a trickster and art forger. In Sydney he finds a tempting partner whose energy and ambition match his own, and together they build a world of scams that looks glamorous until the first real threat appears. That threat is Richie DiMaso, an overeager FBI agent who forces the pair into an undercover arrangement once he uncovers what they have already taken from others. What starts as survival becomes a game of leverage, as each new deal pulls them closer to powerful figures, false promises and one another’s weaknesses. The film uses a genuine political scandal as the spark for an eccentric story about greed, vanity and the pressure of pretending to be someone else. AMERICAN HUSTLE keeps shifting between comic chaos and danger, showing how quickly private desire can collide with public corruption and how much damage lies can do to intimacy. Written and directed by David O. Russell, the film is described as a quirky comedy full of eccentric, layered figures, and it brings together Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Christian Bale, Jeremy Renner and the rest of the cast. Screened in Berlinale Special, AMERICAN HUSTLE stands as a brisk ensemble tale of fraud, power and emotional fallout.