Hustlers
Directed by; Lorene Scafaria, Written by: Jessica Pressler & Lorene Scafaria, Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, Cardi B, Lizzo, Runtime: 110 minutes, Release: 2019
Working as a stripper to make ends meet, Destiny's life changes forever when she becomes friends with Ramona -- the club's top money earner. Ramona soon shows Destiny how to finagle her way around the wealthy Wall Street clientele who frequent the club. But when the 2008 economic collapse cuts into their profits, the gals and two other dancers devise a daring scheme to take their lives back.
Hustlers is a 2019 crime ‘comedy’ drama based on a 2015 article in the New York Magazine titled ‘The Hustlers at Scores’, by Jessica Pressler, which, for some reason, multiple people thought would make a good movie.
In Hustlers, ageing stripper 'Ramona' (Jenny from the block) teaches novice stripper 'Destiny' (Constance Wu) how to be a great stripper. There are other strippers too, all with equally classy stripper names.
Anyway, these strippers strip for the yuppy, Wall Street, filo-fax wankers until there's some sort of economic collapse. I guess. Bless the yuppies. Strippy business goes tits-up and the classically trained, exotic, body-movement technicians devise a cunning plan; as if devised by Baldrick himself (google it, kids).
With the help of stripper sisters 'Annabelle' (Lili Reinhart) and 'Mercedes'(Kiki Palmer), Ramona and Destiny set up a legitimate rescue orphanage for neglected children and small animals. There, they learn that money has no value when it comes to the appreciation of love, kindness the opening of the heart. The children and animals thrive under their care and education and band together to show their appreciation with a Christmas play for the ages.
Or, aforementioned strippers drug and rob dickhead, cock-thought, yuppy wankers. Yeah, that's probably it.
Hustlers is based on a true story, and I'm not sure if it's a story told poorly, or a boring story that didn't need telling in the first place, or both, because this film bored the shit out of me. Over an hour in and I was still waiting for something to happen. Well, that's not quite true, I was doing breakfast and looking at all the crap on my phone.
You know, some of these characters in The Walking Dead could have easily been killed a thousand times over. Anyway, I digress, I watched Hustlers at eight o’clock in the morning and it made me want to drink at eight o’clock in the morning. I haven't seen so much little happen since the episode of The Walking Dead that I watched before it. And the one after.
Hustlers stars Jennifer Lopez, who's pretty much as good as she always is: not great, but not terrible either. Just standard. Cardi B also has a small part. Thankfully, you don't see too much of her, so you don't have to spend too much time questioning how the fuck talentless, rank amateurs like her get acting roles in the first place.
Bored of talking about this now. Basically, it was a pile of shit. I give it half a star because Constance Wu as Destiny was its only saving grace.
Opinions may vary.