Not to sound cocky, but my blog title is better that the actual screenplay of “Hustlers”. Ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but let me count the ill begotten ways of this movie.
1. If you want us to feel empathy for a character, we have to have some back story…J Lo, for instance, how did her character become a money hungry man hater? Constance Wu, we understand is a sad sack and in the LAST 15 minutes we see one tiny NON-PEOPLED clip that’s suppose to explain. Frontload this, honey.
2. Men who frequent strip clubs might be pigs, but aren’t the girls also who profit? I digress, men might be pigs who…BUT they are also three dimensional humans. Again, we find out about Doug Stone in the LAST quarter of the film after we’ve already seen countless men who simply work on Wall Street and then go throw money at women every evening.
3. Fact checked by an actual man: men do not throw money at strippers like Snoop Dog threw at the Padres (https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/05/mlb-worst-first-pitches-50-cent-michael-jordan-snoop-dogg-carl-lewis-bababooey-videos-list). They actually want the specific girl to know, ‘hey this is for you’, so it’s not done from the pitcher’s mound.
4. Continuity and Character Development: J Lo’s character has one daughter who she’s a ‘fabulous’ mom to while she’s up whoring it up nightly, but then in a later scene she has another younger daughter…hmmm, a nine month sabbatical happened? And Constance has a kid she neglects, and we never see the child again for the last quarter other film. Poof, gone.
Three positive asides: J Lo’s body has to be the G.O.A.T., the music is good and I did appreciate the inventiveness of sound in the interview process with Julia Stiles.
Have I convinced you that YOUR money might be better spent at an actual strip club? (kidding) The best news for me is that I can cross off my list of highly respected critics (good to clear out the cache of heroes now and again), any of them who even dare mention the word Oscar and J Lo or Constance Wu in the same sentence. This may be a first; my anger at someone even got nominated.
