Samantha Barbash
Samantha Barbash and Jennifer Lopez
Roselyn Keo and Constance Wu
Jennifer Lopez on the set
HUSTLERS C
USA (110 mi) 2019
‘Scope d: Lorene Scafaria Official
Site
Chris Rock once claimed in his stand-up comedy routine that “As
a father, you have only one job to do: Keep
your daughter off the pole!...If she’s dancin’ on a pole, you fucked up!” What he was talking about is the subject of
this film, though glamorized and viewed with a sense of female empowerment,
much of which can be traced back to Jennifer Beals in FLASHDANCE (1983), a
glorified crowd pleaser. Throw Jennifer
Lopez into the mix and we have another titillating experience that sensualizes the
art of pole dancing, given the glamor treatment, somehow making it chic,
transforming prostitution into a Vegas act of girl power. Not sure any of this ever meets the bar of
relevancy, feeling more like a fairy tale, but it’s designed to be another
audience pleaser. The main problem with
commercial filmmaking is that it follows trends instead of staking out new
material, where this is an attempt at political correct filmmaking, adding a
female writer/director, supposedly offering a female’s perspective, but the
film feels exactly like a male-written movie, the only difference being women
are committing the crimes instead of men, where they are basically
interchangeable. Even though inspired by
real events, it’s like watching a female mafia, as they have no moral values,
where it’s all about making money, and when they get caught, they justify their
behavior by claiming everybody does it.
This is exactly how criminals think, believing the world is filled with
cheaters, so why not take advantage when given the chance? Designed purely for commercial entertainment,
there’s nothing about this film, and that includes the performances, that rise
above the fray, as it never introduces any element of complexity and is instead
content to play by the numbers, where it’s little more than conventional filmmaking,
demonstrating no cinematic flair, looking more like an extended music video It’s kind of a weird film in that it doesn’t
generate fun or excitement, like the big personality Rat Pack stealing money
from the Las Vegas coffers, delving instead into a sleazy, male-dominated
business that couldn’t be more corrupt, as strip clubs aren’t glamorous,
they’re dark and depressing places, where it’s about throwing your money away
just about as fast as you can spend it, where the amoral actions of the female lead
characters are simply deplorable, drugging people with the intent to make them
forget whatever happened, basically stealing their credit cards for trumped up
charges, where it’s highway robbery in the form of kidnapping, as you knock
them out for a few hours with the sole purpose of robbing them blind, like the
ultimate date rape crime. There’s
nothing fun about this, as it’s a contemptible crime performed by half-naked
women dressed in glamorous designer outfits, made to look like they’re being
clever, but it’s an utterly revolting practice, just another selfish, get rich
quick scheme that takes people for suckers, ultimately leaving a sour taste in
one’s mouth. Equally relevant, the real-life women being portrayed in this film
didn’t receive compensation from the movie, so the film steals their lives,
portrays them onscreen, inaccurately, by the way, and then pays them
nothing. There’s something underhanded
about that which deserves to be mentioned.
Inspired by an original article written by Jessica Presser
in New York magazine December 28,
2015, The
Hustlers at Scores -- The Cut, the film transfers this device into the
movie, where the actions are presented as a flashback from an interview given
to an investigative journalist, though the reason for the interview is never
clear, as she’s revealing information about a group of strippers gone rogue,
operating their own criminal ring on the side, using drugs to knock out their
clients, taking as much from their credit cards as was humanly possible, all
without having any sex and very little work, where the actual science involved was
finding the right guy to fleece, serving him a single drink with a group of attractive
women dressed to the nines, treating him like a king, getting his hopes up about
the wonderful time he’s about to have, and then sucker punch him, believing
this kind of set-up is an actual business transaction, though it’s theft,
perhaps something this group of women wouldn’t want published, where talking to
the press seems like an act of betrayal, a she’s basically ratting out herself
and her friends with nothing apparently to gain. As it turns out the reporter talked to more
than one of the girls, but it’s never clear why they exposed themselves to the
public, airing all their dirty laundry in public. Perhaps they were proud of themselves,
thinking they were so deviously clever. This
is equally confusing in the film, making little sense, though without these
personal revelations there’d be no material for the film, which might have
worked better portraying a completely fictional group of scam artists, leaving
out the interviews. Instead what we have
is a group of former strippers fed up with a system designed purely to exploit
the girls, where the men running the clubs made all the money, deciding instead
to turn the tables on the clients by excluding the strip clubs as the middle
men and sharing all of the profits themselves.
Even if it turns out to be grand larceny, these women think the men have
it coming, as they’re mostly super aggressive Wall Street types with money
coming out of their ears, where degrading women is their stock and trade, so
they simply reverse engineer a system designed to steal all their money based
upon a fictitious evening’s entertainment that never materializes. For this kind of film to become a popular
sensation only reveals the extent of our moral abyss and our fascination with
narcissism, as this kind of one-way, self-serving behavior, whether initiated
by men or women, is simply revolting, mirroring the actions of entertainer Bill
Cosby, currently serving 3 to 10 years for his extensive date rape practice of
drugging women, though we have seen this sort of thing before, in Mary Harron’s
over-the-top use of surreal horror in American
Psycho (2000) or Scorsese’s The
Wolf of Wall Street (2013), both of which demonstrated much more cinematic
flair than this film, as did Steve McQueen’s Widows
(2018), where this has much more in common with Sofia Coppola’s equally
airheaded celebrity worship in The
Bling Ring (2013).
At the film’s center is Constance Wu as Dolores aka Destiny
(modeled after Roselyn Keo, who in reality was the business mastermind, not the
innocent projected here), a single mom who takes up stripping to support her
family, becoming mesmerized by watching the performance of a seasoned pro,
Jennifer Lopez as Ramona Vega (modeled after Samantha Barbash, aka Samantha
Foxx, aka Miss Foxita), who commands attention with a pole routine that
produces maximum results, drawing plenty of attention (and money) from the men,
even though she’s a decade older than most of the girls, who she mentors,
showing them the ropes, taking Destiny under her wing, actually developing a
routine together, becoming her personal trainer and choreographer. Adding to this collective is Cardi B as
Diamond, a Bronx-born stripper loosely based on her own stripping career, who
also helps to mentor Destiny, Kiki Palmer as Mercedes (modeled after Marsi
Rosen), and Lili Reinhart as Annabelle (modeled after Karina Pascucci), the
latter two joining Destiny in Ramona’s inner circle after she hatches a plan to
steal thousands of dollars from their clients.
The investigative journalist is Julia Stiles (modeled after Jessica
Presser). With the film essentially
highlighting the rise and fall of Destiny, we see the film through her eyes,
adding a personal narration about getting into the business, establishing some
degree of success and economic independence before the economic disaster in
2008 when the stock market collapse left half of Wall Street unemployed. Having to reinvent their careers when the club
business went dead, with girls resorting to prostitution instead of dance acts,
desperate times called for desperate measures, resorting to a powdered
substance spiking a customer’s drink, a combination of ecstasy, creating a
dreamlike reverie, and ketamine, an animal tranquilizer that makes them forget,
often ending up totally blacked out, with the girls ringing up fictitious
charges on their credit cards before sending them home in a cab. “Easy peasy,” as Ramona describes it, an
untraceable crime that leaves the men too humiliated and embarrassed to do
anything about it, as most are married men with families, or have high profiles
where this kind of information will never be made public. Initially it works like a charm, but they get
greedy, hiring more girls, some of whom are unreliable or on drugs, as they extend
their operations. Instead of leaving
something for a follow-up scam, they take it all, emptying accounts for the
credit card maximum, like $50,000, which would be considered a gold mine,
quickly using up their best clientele, forcing them into more dangerous
territory, reaching into the unknown.
While the camaraderie of the women is the centerpiece of the film, it
mostly features the friendship of Ramona and Destiny, though we never learn
much about any of the women, as there’s not a lot of character development,
instead this accentuates the murky atmosphere of the clubs and the scantily
clad women who work there, growing euphoric at what they’ve discovered, a way
to get rich by barely doing any work at all, though Ramona (in real life it was
Destiny) is viewed as a master at getting the personal details needed for
credit card transactions, which might include passwords or security
questions. While it’s given the sleek
look of a well-executed scam, using slow-motion to accentuate each of the
women, with wall-to-wall music, there’s no covering up the fact that what
they’re doing can destroy lives.
Nonetheless, they maintain their position that these men are assholes
who deserve done to them what they routinely do to others, no regrets, no
questions asked. While it’s presented as
a breezy, lightweight comedy, by the end, with the cops reluctantly breaking
the case (from a tape recording by one of the clients), Destiny starts to
reflect on what she’s done, yet there’s never any sense of remorse, leaving a
dull empty feeling afterwards, never providing a hint of complexity or a sense
that any of this matters. For a much
better film, view Andrea Arnold’s revelatory and much more emotionally
devastating American
Honey (2016).
