Folks, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, The Hustle was bad. Although, if I think back to the worst film I saw in 2018, Acrimony, it wasn’t quite that bad. And there are still so many months to the year left, so maybe something will top it, but at this point in time it takes the prize.
The movie centers on sloppy and brash con artist, Penny (Rebel Wilson), and the stealth and polished con artist, Josephine (Anne Hathaway). I was with this film for the first twenty minutes and then it got random and choppy until they decided to make a bet on who could con kid-millionaire, Thomas (Alex Sharp). Penny pretends to be blind to win his sympathy, and Josephine pretends to be the doctor who can cure her hysterical blindness.
Once again, things are super random and unnecessary from there, but we learn that Thomas really likes Penny, who wants to call off the bet because of it. Josephine, being heartless, ups the ante on the bet to see who can win Thomas’ affections. Penny is lead to believe that Josephine and Thomas ended up sleeping together and he gave her his life savings from the original bet. Feeling so bad, Penny gives him back the money he relinquished and he takes off to America.
We then learn that Thomas was real con artist having gotten Josephine to invest in his “latest app” and keeping the money Penny just transferred to him. He texts saying that “the best cons are con artists themselves.” After a time, Penny is about to head out when Thomas shows up in his latest con, but wants to include the women. They concede, and we see them pull off a con together.
Like I said before, this movie was bad. Touted as a comedy, there were few laughs, and a lot of ridiculous accents. The concept was fine, but it felt like scenes were just slapped together, making the plot sort of dance all over the place. Alex Sharp was probably the only good thing about this movie, and that’s not really good enough. Skip this in the theater and to rent.