HUSTLERS

It’s amazing how far one can get when they simply look the part.

Look important, you get treated like you are important. Look like you care, and people will open up to you because they think you care. Look like you have something to offer, someone will take you up on that offer – maybe even pay you for your trouble.

Look like you belong and everything around you is under control, nobody will ask a single question…not even when you break every rule in the book.

HUSTLERS first introduces us to Dorothy (Constance Wu), a single mum who also supports her grandmother and turns to stripping to make ends meet. Using the stage name “Destiny”, Dorothy gets off to a clumsy start and visually wonders if stripping will be worth her while.

Then she meets Ramona (Jennifer Lopez). The first Dorothy sees Ramona dance, she has a small fortune’s worth of bank notes tossed at her on the stage. She has the mojo and the moves to own any room and every man in it. Soon after, Dorothy and Ramona meet face-to-face for a quiet moment. Ramona sees something special in Dorothy and decides to take the new girl under her wing.

At first being under that sequenced wing is all about learning who to court and how to contort. Just as things are getting good though, The Economic Crisis of 2008 arrives. The Global Market crashes, and all of that money that used to be slipped into the women’s g-strings is now being safely stowed in mattresses.

After licking their wounds separately for a while, Dorothy reunites with Ramona and learns the of a new hustle. Flanked by two more ex-strippers, Mercedes and Annabelle (Keke Palmer and Lili Reinhart), the ladies will circle well-to-do wolves of Wall Street and bleed them dry over the course of one wild night. Doormen are in on it, so too are the bartenders. Everyone is getting a cut as these would-be players’ credit cards are ripped-off and racked-up.

The guys feel adored and powerful. The women stay flush and fashionable. What could possibly go wrong?

The first time the two leads of this film truly talk, Ramona opens up her coat to wrap around Dorothy and keep her warm. If one is at all uncertain of the sort of sisterhood we are about to see on-screen, it is established in that moment. Lopez and Wu are kindred spirits and partners-in-crime throughout HUSTLERS. They will go out of their way to share everything they have and keep one-another safe and warm. Their dynamic is sometimes about competition, occasionally mentorship, and always true sisterly love.

That first moment though and the connection it embodies says it all; these women will go out of their way to share their blessings. Things can only ever go wrong for them if they stop offering shelter from the cold.

HUSTLERS is one long power play, and director Lorene Scafaria makes it perfectly clear where the power of this story is centred. Even her camera has a way of capturing the women in ways that are always sexy, never dirty. We are allowed to look, but we will never leer.

That’s what makes this more than just a dirty little crime movie – the attention to the players, and the framing of the marks.

“The Hustlers” are a living, breathing embodiment of workplace dynamics. There are wins that the whole team celebrates, and losses that spark the blame-game. There are cliques within cliques, personalities that need to be understood, and differing opinions on how the next move should be made. They’re all on the same side, and they have each-other’s backs…but that doesn’t mean they always see eye-to-eye on the task at-hand.

Those hushed conversations about a teammate you’ve overheard in the lunchroom from time to time? The Hustlers are having them; they’re just wearing stilettos while they whisper.

Make no mistake though: When there’s work to do, these ladies get in formation.

As for the “victims” of these sexy swindles, there is very little pity to go around. Once or twice a mark is shown as a “good guy who got carried away”, but truly it’s only once or twice. Most of who we see are men who need to flash their earning like it’s a backstage pass. They have no interest in being better, so they are forced to show that they can at least afford better. When that gets old, they will remind the people below them just how far below them they are. These men can literally afford to be anything they want to be – except, it would seem, good men.

After all, lest we forget that these men are all reasonably good looking and truly rich. And yet, they still need to pay beautiful women to spend time with them.

Nowadays, a lot of people are trying to rip a lot of other people off. A few people believe that money will bring them anything they want (including freedom and happiness), some people are looking for loopholes in the system they can exploit. Sometime good people get caught up in the middle of things, but more often than not it’s about playing the game and still being able to look at yourself in the mirror…even if that mirror is on the ceiling or the floor.

The whole world is a hustle; some people just have the guts to make the hustle work for them.

Matineescore: ★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of ★ ★ ★ ★

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