Hustlers: Don't be conned

Hustlers (2019) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for nudity, pervasive sexual content, profanity and drug use
By Derrick Bang

Sometimes the elements simply don’t gel.

The whole winds up less than the sum of its parts. And in the case of Hustlers, the parts aren’t that engaging to begin with.

Having fleeced hundreds of thousands of dollars from drugged marks, the gals — from
left, Annabelle (Lili Reinhart), Ramona (Jennifer Lopez), Mercedes (Keke Palmer) and
Destiny (Constance Wu) — treat themselves to some party time.

Director/scripter Lorene Scafaria’s lurid little drama is “inspired by” Jessica Pressler’s lengthy December 2015 feature article in New York magazine. Scafaria actually strip-mined Pressler’s piece quite extensively; in terms of detail, the resulting film is much more authentic to its source than most claiming to be “based on actual events.”

But that’s far from satisfying. The major problem is that both Pressler and Scafaria have hitched their respective narratives to highly unreliable narrators. Pressler wisely adopted a clinical journalist’s approach, putting more faith in details subsequently verified by police investigations.

Scafaria, in contrast, constructed a story inhabited by characters who — if not sympathetic — would at least be interesting.

In this, alas, she failed. 

More than anything else, Hustlers — with its quartet of scheming escorts — is boring. Extremely boring. It also falls into a trap common to films that attempt to illuminate exploitative behavior: It becomes relentlessly exploitative.

On top of which, it’s difficult to ignore the cynicism of this film’s creation. It’s clearly a vanity project for Jennifer Lopez, who — in her parallel role as producer — ensures that Jennifer Lopez (as star) gets plenty of exposure. That descriptor is deliberate; there’s no question that Lopez wants us to be impressed by her 50-year-old body, much the way Demi Moore strutted her stuff in the 1996 adaptation of Carl Hiaasen’s Striptease.

So, okay, yes: Lopez is in phenomenal shape. Truly stunning. No argument.

But therein lies another problem: Her presence overwhelms this tawdry saga. It’s always Jennifer Lopez, walking, talking and stalking. At no time does she transcend her own self in order to become Ramona, ringleader of a coterie of cuties who graduate from pole twirling and lap dancing to the unpalatably larcenous — and, for a time, highly successful — fleecing of wealthy Wall Street jerks.

Which is ironic, because Ramona isn’t the primary character here. That role falls to Destiny (Constance Wu), a struggling single gal who reluctantly embraces the life, hoping to make enough money to keep her beloved grandmother (Wai Ching Ho) housed. It’s early 2007, and take note; that date is important.

Destiny, pejoratively dubbed “New Girl,” initially finds New York’s club scene too intimidating; “We’re not feeling you,” the male clients sniff. (Yuck.) Then she becomes entranced by Ramona, the venue’s star attraction, whose pole exploits prompt a rain of cabbage. Take me under your wing, Destiny clumsily begs Ramona, and of course the latter agrees, in a kumbaya, us-girls-gotta-stick-together display of sisterhood.

Ugh.

Neither Wu nor Lopez comes close to pulling off this contrived encounter, but they can’t be blamed entirely; Scafaria’s dialogue is ludicrous, and the scene is staged like something out of My Little Pony. This becomes par for the course; most of this film’s one-dimensional characters have the depth of tissue paper. Wu does her best, as the story proceeds, but even Destiny remains a cipher. 

We’re apparently intended to bond with these women because they stand up for themselves, by striking back at the arrogant, condescending men who treat them so contemptibly. That’s this film’s tag line: “Savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.”

Makes the film sound like a Robin Hood-esque, thoroughly satisfying #MeToo strike for gender revenge, doesn’t it?

Um, no.

Scafaria’s script doesn’t have near the psychological depth to pull that off, nor is the tone sufficiently vicarious or triumphant. After the first 15 minutes, with its modicum of back-stage banter intended to depict these women as a protective, we’ve-got-your-back posse, things rapidly devolve into an endless cycle of sniggering male marks being escorted into back rooms, where gaggles of gals debase themselves as paper money is slipped between thin straps.

Over and over and overagain, while cinematographer Todd Banhazi misses no opportunity to caress every curve, and leer at every bared breast. (None of which belong to the stars, of course; topless assets are exposed solely by anonymous supporting players.)

It quickly begins to feel hypocritical.

On top of which, it’s hard (impossible?) to sympathize with “heroines” who are every bit as cruelly conniving, duplicitous and avaricious as their targets, particularly when they start drugging their marks with MDMA and ketamine. We’re left with the usual cliché — greed goeth before a fall — and since when is that news?

A better script might have wrung some pathos from the sight of pitiable women whose ambitions rise no higher than Gucci shoes and Louis Vuitton satchels, but here it’s just faux venality and play-acting. Scafaria hasn’t built a credible reality, inhabited by actual people.

In fairness, a few sidebar characters rise above their thin material. Ho is endearing, as Destiny’s grandmother; Mercedes Ruehl is memorably feisty, as the club’s unofficial “den mother.” Lili Reinhart also is sweetly vulnerable as the slightly clueless Annabelle, the larcenous clique’s youngest and most innocent member, who has a tendency to vomit during moments of stress. (Said moments occur frequently.)

Reinhart puts more persuasive conviction, into Annabelle’s briefly recited back-story, than anybody else in this sorry misfire.

Which brings us to Scafaria’s clumsiest blunder: Destiny’s occasional flash-forward “interview sessions” with a journalist assigned to transform this saga into a feature story (Julia Stiles, apparently standing in for Pressler). I’ve long maintained that movies which open in a psychiatrist’s office are invariably stinkers; Scafaria may wait a bit before springing the first such detour on us, but the result is the same.

Aside from damaging her film’s meager degree of dramatic continuity, these scenes are tone-deaf to an astonishing degree. The incredulously wide-eyed Stiles, generally a much better actress, isn’t the slightest bit convincing as an investigative journalist; as presented, there’s no way she’d ever win the confidence of somebody like Destiny.

Just as there’s absolutely no way Destiny and Ramona, no matter how greedy, would fail to be suspicious of the behavior by Dawn (Madeline Brewer), one of their late-entry recruits. Brewer overplays her role as coked-up prostitute so broadly, that what subsequently transpires sails way past contrived, and becomes blindingly stupid.

By which point, we’ve long given up on these characters.

One ultimately wonders what Scafaria intended to accomplish. Penetrating social commentary? Vicarious revenge comedy? Pole-dancing workout promo?

At the end of the day, Hustlers is no more than a Jennifer Lopez rock video, occasionally interrupted by fitfully unconvincing efforts at storytelling.