‘Hustlers’ review — Everyone is hustling someone

Hustlers follows a group of strippers as they hatch a plan to swindle money from their wealthy clientele.

30-second review: Hustlers is an incredibly complex movie. Not only is it hilarious and charming, it delivers commentary on complicated themes of female relationships, the power dynamic between men and women, and the struggle of the working class. And it doesn’t betray either side. It never becomes uncompelling or unentertaining.

Much of the credit for its success lies in director and writer Lorene Scafaria‘s understanding of the characters. They’re hilarious and fun to hang out with, but also lived in and realistic. There’s so much to latch onto. It also helps that Jennifer Lopez is doing some of the best work of her career and is worth of Oscar attention.

Details: ? Lorene Scafaria // ?? U.S. // ⏰ 110 minutes

Where to watch Hustlers: In theaters now.

Hustlers is a heist movie that also pulls off its own heist as it follows a group of strippers led by Jennifer Lopez in her greatest role since the 90s. While the movie is as glitzy and sleek as you’d expect with enough jokes and gags to keep you entertained from beginning to end, there’s also a complex framework of themes working in the screenplay from female empowerment and relationships to financial irresponsibility and the power dynamic between men and women.

It’s quite impressive how much director and writer Lorene Scafaria packs into the breezy 110-minute runtime — including cameos from Cardi B, Lizzo, and Usher. Still, you never feel like you’re missing out on any element. The movie is framed by an interview Destiny (Constance Wu coming off Crazy Rich Asians) is doing with a journalist (Julia Stiles) about her time as a stripper from 2007 through the financial crisis and its aftermath.

The beginning of the movie is surprisingly subdued. Scafaria takes care not to fall into the various traps that most directors would when tackling a movie set in a strip club. She doesn’t imbue the lifestyle with extra glitz and glam and instead lets the characters talk for themselves. During that time we get to know shy but tough Destiny who was left to be cared by her grandmother as a child in Queens who is taken under the caring wing of Ramona, a veteran at the club they work at.

There, they deal with all kinds of men as a breezy montage shows us — mostly various levels of Wall Street figures looking to escape the mundanity of their lives or to simply feel powerful. For a time, they lived like queens able to buy themselves expensive jewelry, pay for beautiful apartments, and, at least for Ramona, take care of her daughter.

Ramona is a fascinating character study in herself — and Lopez’s performance only elevates her. She’s a woman of dichotomies. She’s both caring and unforgiving, emotional and hardened. You can see those complexities in Lopez’s performance — in the way she carries herself and the way she moves. When she walks through the club, you believe she rules the world.

Like all good things, though, it had to all come crashing down. During the economic downturn of 2008, Destiny has a daughter and is forced to stop stripping. However, even if she kept at it she wouldn’t make nearly as much money as much of the club’s clientele also lost their jobs in the crisis.

That’s when Ramona, with the help of Destiny and two other girls from the club — Annabelle (Lili Reinhart) and Mercedes (a delightful Keke Palmer) — hatch a plan to hustle wealthy Wall Street men out of their money by using their charm to gain their trust before drugging them and running up huge tabs on their credit cards.

The brilliance of that plan is that the men are so embarrassed by what they’ve done and what was done to them that they keep quiet. Pride is one of the most powerful weapons to use against those in power. It’s one of the many complex themes that Scafaria explores in her wonderfully layered screenplay that uses several tricks to tell the story — flashbacks and forwards, montages, switching perspectives.

However, it’s the way she brings that screenplay to the screen that’s the real wonder. Hustlers is both stripped down (pun intended) and larger-than-life. She allows the movie to be entertaining and funny and delightful while also delivering emotional beats between characters that are raw, especially between Ramona and Destiny.

I feel like I’ve let this movie down. It’s so difficult to explain what makes it so great because there is so much not on the surface that does it. There’s so much joy exuding from the screen along with the pressing moments. The characters and the world feel heightened and lived in. The characters are complex and charming and relatable. It’s a circus act of a movie. A nearly impossible feat that somehow works. It’s one of the best movies of the year.