The Hustle: 2019’s Best Casino Movie

Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson came up with a brand new movie called The Hustle where they are performing scam arts. This is not a documentary about poker, blackjack or slots similar to Book of Ra. The movie is a remake of the 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, where Steve Martin and Michael Caine are playing as con artists who prey upon well-heeled women. However, The Hustle is not a lame gender-flipped movie, like the new Ghostbusters or the Ocean’s 8. Yet, the film is casino related because these two are playing cards and people’s hearts at the same time.

The Story

The Hathaway-Wilson duo are well known for their capability of making us laugh. And they didn’t disappoint us. In their 2 hour movie, they perform scam arts to whom the main objective is to steal from the upper class men. They approach their mission in different ways.

Penny Rust (Rebel Wilson) uses her intelligence and a photo of her hot “sister” to ask help for her implant. While Josephine Chesterfield (Anne Hathaway) is using more sophisticated ways to loot precious jewelry from middle-aged people. One of her tactics is to play as a dumb girl at the blackjack table, where she can meet her next targets.

One of her targets is a man who wants to sell his wife’s bracelet in order to play some table games. However, Josephine is able to switch the bracelet with a fake one and she goes home with the original. After Penny and Josephine have met each other on a train, Penny learning of Josephine’s tactics wants to learn from her.

However, after a short time, Josephine gets rid of Penny and after they split, it’s obvious that they can’t stay in Beaumont-sur-Mer. The city is a paradise for two scam stars like them. So they decide who is going to stay, by making a mission out of it. The pledge is about, who will be the first to steal from young man called Thomas (Alex Sharp) who has a big amount of funds.

The game is on and the girl’s first attempt to get his resources from a casino floor filled with table games and slots. Josephine is playing as the shy, cute girl, and Penny transformed herself into a blind woman. The blind girl act reminds Thomas about his blind grandmother. They find themselves in a casino room, where Penny, Josephine and Thomas start playing roulette.

In the first roulette spin, Josephine and Thomas have speculated on the same number, and they both prevailed. But then Penny comes in and asks Thomas to place a number for her because she can’t do that due to her blindness. Unfortunately, Penny failed to overcome the roulette and started to cry.

Not to be fooled by Penny’s act, because this was just the beginning. Her real plan started in which she will loot all of Thomas resources in order to cure her blindness. Everything goes well for Penny, until Josephine pretends to be the doctor who can cure the woman’s blindness. This little competition between the girls stops when Penny realizes that Thomas has feelings for her, and she starts to fall in love with him. However, this is not everything, the boy finds out about the intention of the girls, and everything has changed.

Conclusion

I can only recommend the movie, it’s a piece of art and a great 21 century rework, which is really rare nowadays. It’s funny, it’s entertaining, and it perfectly illustrates the similarities between life and the games present in a casino. Everyone wants to achieve greatness, to hold the best cards and to have the best game. However, sometimes things don’t happen the way people want for various reasons, either because of love or bad momentum.

That said, the movie is relaxing, packed with wisdom, and rather smart. The only thing I didn’t like about it was the end. In my opinion it was a bit rushed, the producers could spend more time to finish it. I had so many other better ways to finish in my mind. But after all it was a great movie.