Shining A Light In The Corners: "Blindspotting"

Blindspotting
directed by Carlos Lopez-Estrada
starring Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casals, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones


Blindspotting is a cinema love letter to How Things Used To Be.

Not just a love letter to how things used to be in Oakland, the setting for this film, but to every inner-city hood that is a mix of strife, heart, tragedy, beauty and humanity, where many came of age and many more are living still. Where friendships are forged and tried and tested and feel like family.

For black and brown people, Oakland has a long and storied cultural history in politics and the arts. It has long been ravaged by crime and overpoliced. Today, like many urban centers around the nation, it is being claimed by hipsters and gentrifiers. From the opening credits, where director Carlos Lopez-Estrada uses a split screen to juxtapose the past and the present, we see the good and the bad.

Blindspotting is also an examination of How We Used To Be. An examination of the time we had to grow the eff up, not give up our dreams necessarily but refine them. Everybody has to make that transformation. Remember your younger or more naive self, when you weren't exactly innocent, but were just old enough to think you knew everything? When you had decided who you were and who truly had your back? Often we are forced by circumstances to open our eyes to a much bigger picture. Often, those circumstances are sad, sudden, ironic, tragic; sometimes they are of our own making. Regardless, they mark us forever after.

Here's the thing: As uncomfortable as it is, change is unavoidable. Whether in ourselves, the people around us, or in our environment, nothing stays the same.

As you can tell, this movie got me all in my feelings.

Blindspotting centers on Collin (Tony and Grammy-winning Hamilton star Daveed Diggs), a 20something parolee living out the final days of his court-ordered probation period in a halfway house. Collin is trying to get back on his feet and stay out of trouble, since any infraction can put him back behind bars. He's rattled by the fact that his mother hasn't kept his bedroom available for him, hurt by his broken relationship with Val (Janina Gavankar), and profoundly haunted by witnessing a white police officer gunning down an unarmed black youth only days before his probation ends. He takes refuge in his relationship with his trigger-happy childhood friend, Miles (Rafael Casals), an Oakland-bred white boy who has settled down in the neighborhood with his black wife (Jasmine Cephas Jones, another Hamilton alum and daughter of This Is Us TV favorite Ron Cephas Jones) and their child. Miles, who also works at the moving company, lives life out loud, with a carefree heedlessness that Collin is discovering he can no longer afford.

We don't discover the details of what landed him in prison until mid-film, when it's related by a random stranger in a brilliant reenactment sequence that is simultaneously hilarious and horrific. "Tell me something, when you look at me now, do you see [that incident]?" Collin asks Val, his former girlfriend and the dispatcher at the moving company where he works. What's interesting is that, at this point in the film the audience sees the entire scope of what Collin is grappling with.

As written by stars Diggs and Casals, real-life long-time friends and erstwhile spoken word artists from Oakland, Blindspotting shows us the ways that Collin is being forced to truly examine his circumstances and make some choices in order to not just to move on with his life but move up. The movie is less than subtle in making points about the impact of police brutality, the criminalization of black men, staying true to one's roots, the parameters of friendship, gentrification of traditionally black neighborhoods, and how equality and tolerance can combust when non-blacks brought up within black culture face the confounding problems of white privilege within themselves. It also uses rap as a tool of expression for both characters, who like to trade rhymes and improve their flow when things on the job get slow.

Though it's a snapshot of current-day Oakland, Blindspotting shares more narrative DNA with films like John Singleton's 1991 drama Boyz N Tha Hood or 1995's Ice Cube comic opus Friday than it does with Sorry To Bother You, the ribald Oakland-set social satire that hit theaters earlier in July. Like Tre in Boyz and Craig in Friday, Collin is the voice of reason in a West Coast enclave of established relationships, cultural traditions, and social hierarchies, but he has to evaluate his place within that world and take responsibility for his own actions to become a better man. He has to identify and shine a light on those blind spots.

It's the compelling and emotional performance of Diggs as Collin as well as his natural chemistry with the exuberant and hotheaded Casals that make Blindspotting really click. Its visual imagery and narrative themes stayed with me long after I left the theater.


All photos are screen shots.
Click Words On Flicks logo to see archive of blogs.

Lost In The Sauce: "Roman J. Israel, Esq."

Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Directed by Dan Gilroy
Starring Denzel Washington

Our fast-paced technological culture speeds along with new information, innovations, and tech-enabled practices at a rate that some of us can scarcely wrap our minds around. Further, this culture shames, ridicules, and writes off anyone who can't keep up. Those people are a. Lazy, b. stupid, c. useless, and d. stuck in the past. So say the culture gurus, the tech entrepreneurs, and the millennial wiz kids. Get with the program or get left behind. Except some of us spent a lot of time and energy getting good--indeed, expert-- at things that may now be considered obsolete. Faced with radical change, some of us have trouble adapting. Some may be forced to start over and may not adapt at all. Some adapt, always running a step behind. And some, faced with the eradication of a world they once knew well and forced to navigate a landscape where they feel lost and uncomfortable, grow bitter and disillusioned. Not everyone is cut out to be cutting edge.

These are some of the thoughts I had watching Roman J. Israel, Esq., the new film starring Oscar winner Denzel Washington.

Roman is a socially maladjusted, stuck-in-the-1970s legal wizard who is relegated to the back room of a Los Angeles law practice to do extensive research and legal strategy, while his universally admired law partner pleads the cases in public. Deeply committed to justice, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the law and a dogged sense of persistence, Roman seems to have made his peace with his role as the power behind the throne. Subsisting on peanut butter, engulfed in the sounds of classic soul and jazz recordings, and reliving his own halcyon days as a committed advocate of grassroots organizing for political change at a time when the Black Panthers were news, Roman has turned his tumbledown Koreatown apartment and his cluttered downtown office into a well-fortified, protective bubble against modern times. Until the day the bubble bursts, and Roman discovers that the throne was really just a rickety chair.

Change arrives in the form of a slick-suited corporate attorney named George Pierce (Colin Farrell), named by Roman's law partner and his family to liquidate the company now that the partner has had a heart attack. George quickly shatters Roman's illusions. The firm was in debt. The crusading law partner he so admired was engaged in kickbacks. And the partner's largesse, keeping Roman on the payroll but out of sight for years, has made him not just unfit to run the firm on his own, but damn near unemployable anywhere else. Despite Roman's efforts to get hired on elsewhere, he is forced to take the pity position George holds out to him at his fancy schmancy, high-cost, high-rise law firm where Roman's musty wide-lapel suits, puffed out fro, and no-filter pronouncements just don't fit in.

Roman's attempts to get with the program and prove that he can lawyer with the best of them lead him to make a major gaffe on a murder case that could attract a malpractice suit to his new firm. He presents his pet project, a long-labored-over bill to reduce plea bargaining and excessive sentencing, to George and is rejected. Then his attempt to give a presentation to a group of young, potential activists breaks down over gender politics. He's discomfited by the interest and admiration of Maya, a non-profit organizer he's met during his job search. Tired of being wrong, even as he tries to do what's right, and tired of being last while others seem to go first, Roman makes an illegal grab for a gold ring so that he can get a taste of the high life. Even as he regrets the move and attempts to right it, he is doomed by his decision.

Denzel does his usual bang-up job giving us a convincing portrait of a character we don't see every day. But while autism is hinted at, we never find out exactly what Roman has been diagnosed with or its specific effect on his life, other than spouting unedited phrases like "enemas of sunshine" (which I'm going to adopt in place of "bullshit", lol) and eating Jif every night. His law partner, painted as an eminent civil rights hero, is never shown on screen. And in scenes where he consults with the suspects in a grocery store killing, Roman doesn't have any problems communicating. While his character is being pressured on all sides, the choice that he makes to trade privileged information for reward money seems to come out of nowhere. Elsewhere in the film, Farrell's George Pierce can't decide if he is a cold-hearted corporate villain or a touchy-feely mentor. And Carmen Ejogo tries to give the character of Maya a committed center, but her attraction to Roman seems unrealistic as well.

It's far from a perfect film. But I think it's worth seeing. It made me think about how our culture leaves little room for people with differences, and how the desperation of being caught up in changing circumstances can tempt us, under pressure, to move the needle on our own moral compasses. Hold tight to your convictions, people. We're moving faster than ever, but don't lose your grip on your soul.

Appreciating Eartha: "Anna Lucasta" (1958)

It's all about Eartha.

I love me some Eartha Kitt. Like others my age I was first exposed to her voice during the holidays, seductively whining to St. Nick about what she'd like to receive for Christmas in the 1953 recording "Santa Baby." Even without a visual, her voice sounded sublimely seductive and tigerish. Unlike people who have covered it since, who treat the song as if it were just a cute little novelty wish list ("ha ha, yes we would all like a duplex and checks, isn't that funny?"), Eartha sang it from the perspective of a woman already well kept and pampered by the men in her life who fully expects to receive what she's asking for or there will be hell to pay. It's a list of demands delivered with a wink and a hike of her skirt. Powerful stuff.

And then there was the Eartha Kitt who played Catwoman on "Batman." Did flames not erupt from the screen whenever she was on it, purring and vamping, one of the first black women in a role of any import on TV in the '60s? Eartha hit the "Batman" scene in '67, overlapping with Diahann Carroll in "Julia" by '68, but as groundbreaking as Julia was, it wasn't nearly as much fun to watch as "Batman." Plus, Diahann was all covered up in her nurse's whites and tasteful dresses, while Eartha was tricked out in skintight leather, a mask, and talons!

Eartha fascinated me. People told my mother that she resembled the actress, which further fueled my fascination. Also, Eartha's unplaceable, unique style of speaking had many wondering where she came from. She looked and sounded too exotic to have been from South Carolina, which is exactly where she was born.

Anyway, I didn't get an opportunity to see much more of Ms. Kitt apart from guest appearances on the ubiquitous '70s variety shows. I hadn't seen many of her films from the early days. Recently, I saw Anna Lucasta. At first I thought this was a remake of the Greta Garbo film Anna Christie, but I have to watch that flick again to be sure. ** Aha! It is a remake of a 1949 film with Paulette Goddard as Anna.

While times have certainly changed since the 1950s, narrative standards haven't changed much: the story of the bad girl -- the fallen woman who tries to make good -- is as perennial now as it was back then (Cinderella Liberty, Mona Lisa, Pretty Woman, the list goes on). It's also a role that often proves the mettle of an actress. Anna Lucasta was Eartha's turn, and she is quite good in the film, as is Sammy Davis Jr. The drama has some overtly comedic moments, and it also has a natural rhythm of showing the life and values of a real black middle class family of the era. But Rex Ingram, who plays the family patriarch, overdoes his role, chews up all the scenery, and nearly ruins the picture.

The Plot: Anna is a San Diego dockside prostitute, a good time girl whose father threw her out of the house years before, so she had nowhere to go but down. Later we discover that Anna was her father's favorite, but when he found her sitting too close to her high school boyfriend, he labeled her a slut and forced her from their home. It's hard to read between the lines of the dialog and '50s standards whether there is actually more to the incident -- it doesn't appear that Anna and her beau were doing anything that illicit, and one wonders whether Mr. Lucasta, represented as an extremely religious man with a drinking problem, bore an unhealthy fondness for his own daughter that led him to this extreme reaction. But now his son's antiques/junk business is foundering, and an old army friend from Alabama has written to ask that the family find a wife for his son, who is coming for a visit. The son is coming bearing gifts, a lump sum of $5,000, and suddenly the whole extended family is scheming on ways to get the money from what they assume will be a dimwitted country bumpkin. Improbably, they plan to pass off Anna as an acceptable wife, if only Mr. Lucasta will fetch her. It seems a highly immoral plan. The old man is having none of it, but his wife, two sons and two daughters-in-law keep at him until he agrees.

Meanwhile, Anna scrounges drinks and cigarettes in the dockside bar, and brushes off a sailor who shows some interest. When Sammy Davis as Danny, another sailor on leave, blows in, it's obvious that Anna has been waiting for him. They dance, kiss, lush it up, and make plans to paint the town red until, da da DA, Mr. Lucasta appears at the door, begging her to come home. Gratified that the father whose approval she desperately wants has come to call, she agrees.

Back at the Lucasta house, Anna has been apprised of the family's plans and has been cleaned up and coached to ensnare the visitor. But Rudolph, when he arrives, is no country bumpkin. He's an upstanding, handsome agricultural college grad who is smitten the minute he lays eyes on Anna. The two court and coo, and Anna actually falls for Rudolph and realizes she cannot go through with the scheme. She tells Rudolph that she can't marry him and tearfully tells him why. Goodhearted Rudolph says that none of it matters, he loves her anyway. The wedding date is set, Rudolph lines up a great job teaching at a nearby college, and the family is ecstatic.

Except for Dad. Somehow he cannot bear to see his daughter happy. As Anna and Rudy say I do, Mr. Lucasta pays a call to the dean's office of the college where Rudy plans to teach, telling them they shouldn't hire a man whose wife is of low morals. After the wedding, Anna comes home to get ready for the reception and who should show up? Danny, now on leave once more. Though Anna tries to shoo him away, Danny convinces her that she can never live her life "on the square," and she's better off with him, living it up. Anna resists. Danny leaves, but when her father shows up, drunk, and reveals that he has ruined the new couple's reputation, Anna runs after Danny. That age-old adage, "once a 'ho, always a 'ho." Everyone else believes it, so why shouldn't Anna?

Well. improbably, there is a happy ending. Once Anna and Danny have spent all their cash on booze and clubs, they come back to the Lucasta house so Anna can swipe more dough from a hiding place while the family is at church. As fate would have it, her father is in the house, dying in bed, and Anna again tries to appeal to him before he passes. She is too late. The rest of the family comes home and Rudolph sees that Danny has ducked out and rushes to the house to be reunited with Anna.

This is Eartha Kitt at her earth-iest -- pun intended -- and a good look at the fire of young Sammy Davis Jr. as well. Not a perfect film, but a perfect piece of African American film history, alongside 1958's St. Louis Blues, which also featured Eartha as a nightclub singer.

"Pitch Perfect" (2012)

Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow, Rebel Wilson

*written in August 2012*

This past summer I went to this film because I needed a break. Reality was sucking a bit more than usual, and I was mentally going down for the count. Sometimes a film intensifies the gloom for me, but I thought this piece of gossamer fluff could only refresh like a dip in a pool on a summer's day. In that sense, it did not disappoint. There's no mental heavy lifting here.

First disclosure -- I was an immediate fan of TV's "Glee" in its earliest days. (I cannot bear to watch it now because 1, I bore easily and 2, watching the young adults navigate their careers outside of high school bears too much resemblance to my own midlife career struggles). I've been a music and musical theater geek for a long time, singing Anita in church teen production of West Side Story and taking part in chorus and band during my own formative years. I went to Pitch Perfect expecting a bit of Glee Goes To College on the Big Screen. (Or Bring It On with Song.) And that's pretty much what it was. It's pablum, but it's harmless.

Wanna-be DJ/remixer Beca (Anna Kendrick)arrives at college against her wishes, but her Dad wants her to get her degree before launching a music career. She gets suckered into participating in the on-campus a cappella girl group, The Bellas, whose prissy leader is stuck in the past. (They keep singing Ace of Base's "I Saw The Sign," which unfortunately always reminds me of the uncomfortable 8 months I spent working for Arista Records, which was relentlessly promoting that song at the time.) After loads of character development, backstory, a flirtation with a fellow student, and some bad performances, Beca and her fellow Bellas must hunker down for the inevitable Big Competition, where it is Beca's talent for remixing and mashups that finally gets the girls their propers.

Thusly described, this sounds like a massive yawn. But the film struck all the right notes. It didn't take itself too seriously, it had a little romance built in, the lead character wasn't too cutesy-poo nor too goth in disposition. The characters and the music are fun. It had a simple plot, some obvious sit-com humor, and silly sight gags. The film has some twisted obsession with "The Breakfast Club." But I laughed, folks! Yes I did.

As a former urban music journalist, I am torn about the fact that urban music has become widely popular (yay!!); so much so, that young Caucasians have no compunction about co-opting it (ummmm...). I felt a pang of discomfort watching these pale suburbanites who were barely born when the song first hit break out into Blackstreet's 1996 "No Diggity" in a free-for-all facedown. But in the spirit of equal-opportunity archive-raiding, this was OK.

But the real fun of the flick can be embodied in two words: Rebel Wilson. I am in love with her.

Rebel Wilson is so wrong she's right. This Aussie comic actress with the near-albino look is unusual, awkward, lumpen, refreshingly unselfconscious yet deliciously self-aware. Her comic timing is spot on. (The few moments she is onscreen in Bridesmaids are brilliant.) As Fat Amy, she pokes fun at herself, while at the same time showing us how ridiculous and wrong we are for ever thinking that we should poke fun at her. She is unafraid -- and that is the most awesome thing about her. Rock on, Rebel.

(a year later, Rebel's schtick has worn out its welcome, thanks to the dull and tasteless sitcom "Super Fun Night")

Pitch Perfect is a bit of silliness. Anybody expecting it to be a serious examination of college life or a display of spectacular musical artistry are bound to be disappointed. If you need a smile, this could be your prescription.

Her (2013)

Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, the voice of Scarlett Johanssen

"That was weird," pronounced my movie mate after viewing Her on Sunday.

"Yes, but also strangely compelling," I said.

Whether you think Her is weird or compelling or both depends on your attitude toward technology, relationships, and/or long close-ups of Joaquin Phoenix's mustachioed mug. Writer/Director Spike Jonze, who specializes in The Weird And Compelling (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, Where The Wild Things Are), has created a brilliant meditation on what constitutes "relationship" as well as the inevitable collision of humanity and technology. But unlike such tech-gone-rogue cautionary tales as I-Robot, Artificial Intelligence, The Terminator, or (fill in the name of your favorite Sci-Fi "it's learned to think!" flick), the damage is less violent but no less impactful.

I was curious to see this thought-provoking film, set in a pleasant, near-future Los Angeles where technology has advanced significantly enough to where humans can fall in love with their highly-evolved, talking computers. (It's also a future where apparently the waistlines of pants have been raised to new heights and a sort of washed-out, kindergarten yellow-orange-blue color palette has taken over fashion and design). For me, the film is a commentary on the increasing separation and isolation people feel in an increasingly digitized world, and how human connection becomes that much harder to accomplish. At the same time, Her is deeply romantic, where technology is simply the latest tool by which we express all-too-human longings and needs that require another human to satisfy. Still, whether relationships involve humans or machines, the outcome seems predictable.

By now, you know the setup: Mild-mannered writer Theodore Twombley mopes through his solitary routine, unhinged by the fact that his childhood friend-turned-wife (Rooney Mara) is now divorcing him. On a whim, he downloads a brand-new artificially intelligent OS1 operating system that promises to attune itself to his every need and thought. "Samantha," voiced with throaty enthusiasm by Scarlett Johanssen, not only manages the details of Twombley's external life, but her refreshing candor and curiosity also gain her entry into his internal life as well. When she inquires about the cause of his marriage's demise, Twombley says, "I hid myself away in the relationship." It's a line that any insecure, commitment-phobic, life-distracted person can relate to. It becomes easier, therefore, for Twombley to open up to a consciousness and personality that is always accepting, always supportive, and always there -- until, of course, she's not.

So much of filmmaking wisdom is of the "show, don't tell" variety, but Jonze's script allows the conversations and discoveries between Theodore and Samantha to roll out in organic fashion. These are the kind of getting-to-know-you moments of information, teasing, inside jokes, confession, and dream sharing that can be the foundations of love. Too many movies have characters exchange names and then fall into bed, so this kind of back and forth feels refreshing for a while. Until it goes on too long and starts to feel way too precious and we grow tired of staring at Joaquin's lip fur as he listens to Samantha purr.

There are some truly funny moments in Her, first having to do with the nature of his writing job, then with the 3-D video game he diverts himself with in the evenings (director Jonze voices the impertinent "Alien Child") as well as the "Perfect Mom" video game Theodore's pal Amy (Amy Adams) is programming. The shot of Theodore walking outside, deep in conversation with his OS device, which widens to show that everyone on the street is similarly engaged, is thoroughly ironic. There are also some awkward moments, mostly having to do with sex. "You're a creepy man," accuses a drunken blind date (Olivia Wilde), who only moments before had been engaging Theodore in French kisses and pleas for commitment. And Samantha's plan to utilize a human surrogate in her relationship with Theodore is painful to watch.

Ultimately, though, Her made me want to cry. You will no doubt be thinking, "Why, for heaven's sake?" Some see this film as being hopeful about love. I -- the repressed romantic -- see it as hopeless. With technology becoming more and more complicated and advanced, and more of the world being sucked into its embrace, Her seems less like a cautionary tale and more like a Coming Attractions reel for the future.

FYI: Jonze picked up a Best Screenplay honor for Her at the Golden Globe on Jan. 12.

"American Hustle" (2013)

Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence
Directed by David O. Russell


“We have to get over on all these people.”

Focus on that. It’s the concept that Sydney Prosser/Edith Greensley (Amy Adams) holds out to boyfriend /business partner Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) to get him to brainstorm the Swindle that will save their swindling asses. She utters the line three-quarters of the way through American Hustle, and after all the tumult and complications the plot has put these characters through, we can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with. We know it’s gonna be juicy.

Why do we love a good hustle? Are we born with larceny in our hearts? Are we so greedy as a culture that we get the hots entertaining the notion of grifting other folks? Give us The Sting, The Grifters, The Great Train Robbery, The Great Escape (hell, give us The Wolf Of Wall Street), and we’re thrilled. It’s not called “American” for nothing, and this Hustle straight has us. Watching this whiz-bang ride of a movie, we’re as hungry for the takedown as the conning characters. Why? Because maybe at heart we all feel like poor schnooks ourselves, and sticking it to someone else makes us feel just grand.

American Hustle is loosely based on the ABSCAM scandal of the late ‘70s, in which the FBI was able to nail politicians for taking bribes. Certainly, congressmen and others in high office who take home attaché cases of cash in exchange for legislative favors is a concept we’re against. But this film is also about the price to be paid for daring to upset the undercurrents and utilizing a kind of To Catch A Thief justice.

Over-eager FBI agent Richie Di Maso (Cooper), looking to make his bones at the Bureau, practically shoves the booty down the pols’ throats while drooling in anticipation of the bust, which almost routs the operation. He isn’t smooth enough to swing the sting himself. He needs the duo of Rosenfeld & Prosser, whom he’s busted for small-time loansharking. He’s strong-armed the lovers into working his takedown scheme in return for reduced sentences. The trio proceeds to hook Carmine Polito, the mayor of nearby Camden, New Jersey, by claiming ties to a wealthy sheikh who can bankroll the redevelopment of the then-in-decline Atlantic City in light of newly approved gambling legislation. As Irving gets closer to good-guy Polito, the two develop a real rapport and he begins to have misgivings about the entrapment scheme. More complications ensue as Irving and Sydney clash over how to handle Di Maso, who keeps trying to raise the stakes. Sydney seemingly transfers her affections to the hyper Di Maso, while Irving’s neglected, pathetically narcissistic wife (Jennifer Lawrence), ignorant of her husband’s predicament, further mucks up the works.

What this movie has for it is incredible style and dynamic performances from the cast. The pacing and montages owe a nod to Scorsese, while the start-in-the-middle technique owes a nod to Billy Wilder and Tarantino. But director Russell – whose serio-comic oeuvre includes Spanking The Monkey, Flirting With Disaster, The Fighter, and Silver Linings Playbook -- is no slouch. The music placement – Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” ELO’s “Long Black Road,” Tom Jones “Delilah” (telegraphing or underscoring the action) -- is brilliant. The sets, costumes, and dynamite soundtrack scream the ‘70s, though at times the styling approaches kitsch as Sydney’s every braless outfit plunges to her navel and curlers emerge as the must-have accessory of the era.

The acting is astonishing. You can’t even believe that British, once-buff Batman Bale is buried inside this pot-bellied, comb-overed Lawn Guyland shyster; he so disappears into the character that the movie is easily hijacked by the histrionics of Cooper, in a perm as tightly wound as Richie’s emotions, and by floozy Jennifer Lawrence. Cooper’s take on an Italian mama’s boy with off-the-chain ambitions is startling. Amy Adams is consistently good, this time taking on not only Sydney, but Sydney’s impersonation of a cool British banking heiress who mercilessly teases and fleeces Richie. And JLaw, who seems at first too young for the role of Irving’s clueless wife, creates a unique characterization of both dunderheadedness and vulnerability. There is so much great acting and design on display here that you won’t know which way to look.

Sure, like any piece of art if you examine it too closely you’ll see the flaws. But who cares. The fix is in, kids. Let American Hustle get over on you. Your senses will be delighted and your thirst for cinema larceny will be quenched. You may be hustled, but fair exchange is no robbery.