Hustlers

Hustlers

Starring Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart

Directed by Lorene Scafaria

The Story:
Dorothy (Constance Wu) is an immigrant living in New York City, trying to support both herself and her grandmother, and finds a job at a strip club.  She's shy and nervous at first until she meets veteran Ramona (Jennifer Lopez), who takes Dorothy under her wing and teaches her the finer arts of pole dancing, and the two strike up a deep friendship.

As the years progress Dorothy (who goes by Destiny) earns more money and continues her relationship with Ramona, until she gets pregnant and has to quit the job.  She gives birth to a little girl and misses her bond with Ramona, so she returns to the club and finds that Ramona has upped her game from pole dancing to trapping wealthy Wall Street CEOs and taking their money.  The two begin their con game, and bring in fellow strippers Mercedes (Keke Palmer) and Annabelle (Lili Reinhart), and the girls have a grand time scheming the dirty Wall Street executives out of their money.  As their game becomes more and more dangerous, Dorothy tries to rein it in, but Ramona pursues her love of money and holds it more valuable than even their friendship, leading to a separation between the women after the police catch on to their con.

The Synopsis:
Based off the real life events surrounding a group of strippers who successfully drugged and conned wealthy Wall Street men out of millions of dollars, "Hustlers" is the female-led version of other heist gangster movies that's impeccably delivered by a strong cast and a tight script, resulting in a surprisingly decent film about empowerment and the little (wo)man sticking it to the big man.  The film delivers another strong performance by Constance Wu, but Jennifer Lopez easily steals the show playing a role that's extremely JLo quality - a strong, confident, powerful woman who uses her assets to get what she wants.

The film follows a group of four friends who, during the great Wall Street fiasco of 2008, conned wealthy Wall Street executives out of millions of dollars by drugging them and using their inebriated state to max out their corporate credit cards.  Basically it's a modern day Robin Hood, but instead of giving to the poor they give to themselves, making money for their own gain and providing a unique type of family.  The movie, for the most part, really gives a deep look at the lives of these women and why they do what they do, but as it progresses it becomes more muddy and haphazard, culminating in their eventual arrest in a flurry of activity that seemingly comes from nowhere, with emotions changing in the blink of an eye that doesn't make a whole lot of sense taking in the whole, which is a shame because until that point the characters were so well thought-out and developed.

Constance Wu steps out from her comedic breakthrough performance in last year's "Crazy Rich Asians" and embarks on a darker path as Dorothy, a woman who's the epitome of a stripper - a woman working the pole to provide for her family.  She still has that heart of gold, but it slowly begins to rust throughout the film as she catches on to Ramona's con and tries to take the reigns from her, but still wanting to maintain her old friendship with her mentor.  In a weird way, even though she's top-billed, Wu's performance falls by the wayside compared to the incomparable screen presence that is JLo.

Jennifer Lopez has acted in several films, but this one is easily her best role to date.  As Ramona, Lopez showcases her natural charisma, charm, and confidence as she struts everywhere she goes, fully confident of who she is and what she's doing - stealing from men who deserve it, men who use other people's money for their own pleasure, men who should rightfully be in jail if not for their loads of cash.  She has all the best lines and moments in the film, and clearly owns the screen every moment she's in it.

Ramona gathers a crew of women together, and the actresses who portray them seem to relish their roles and really form a sense of sisterhood that's endearing (even though it's a bit illegal).  Along with Wu, Keke Palmer's Mercedes is doing this to help her incarcerated fiance with his legal problems, and Lili Reinhart's Annabelle is doing it because her family kicked her out for being a stripper.  All four women have strong, righteous motives for what they do - and after all, does anyone really get hurt?  When you have to ask that question, you already know the answer beforehand, but it doesn't stop them from performing their con again and again, and as it goes in cases like this, they keep upping the ante until of course their house of cards collapses.

Ramona wraps up the film nicely with this quote:  "This city, this whole country, is a strip club.  You've got people tossing the money, and people doing the dance."  It's hard to go against that logic, and gives you a feeling that you should root for these underdogs to succeed, even though they're not really helping anyone other than themselves ultimately.  It's hard to root for these women, but it's harder to root against them.

The Summary:
A new underdog story, "Hustlers" delivers strong performances (especially by Jennifer Lopez) and tells the story of how a group of strippers turned the tables on Wall Street hotheads and hustled them out of money that doesn't even belong to them - but still it's hard to root for them, since they're breaking the law, but harder to root against them because deep down you feel that the ends might justify the means.

The Score: A