Film & TV

Film Review: The Hustle

Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson in The Hustle

Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson star in this hilarious gender-flip of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Rebel Wilson, renowned for playing bold and candid character roles such as Natalie in Isn’t it Romantic and Fat Amy in the Pitch Perfect film series, is once again victorious in embodying this identity. She teams up with gender swapped movie Ocean’s Eight Anne Hathaway to exploit rich men in the south of France. The Hustle is Hathaway’s second gender swapped remake and once again she is the elegant and sophisticated con artist. HBO’s television series Veep Chris Addison is the director.

Director Addison’s usual occupation is comedic host or stand-up comedian, roles that require complete hilarity and wit on the spot, as such he appreciates unscripted changes from the cast. Hathaway and Wilson are his equally witty peers and parts of the film include their improvisations, the best example is the trash bag scene where the joke, dress and style chosen were completely Wilson’s idea; so hilarious is the change it features in the trailer.

The dynamic women duo meet by chance on the train and Josephine played by Hathaway is the refined con artist with the house and the networks. She is coerced by the somewhat uncouth but small time swindler played by Wilson, Penny, who, having been a small time con for some time, sees what she has; she doesn’t want to be like Josephine but she does want to con the richer men who have the bigger dollars.

At first the two work together, Josephine first putting Penny through a rigorous training regime and then together they pull off a couple of scams; as time goes on, the two become in competition and their wager becomes who can con the tech billionaire Thomas, played by Alex Sharp.

When you have Jac Shaeffer, co-writer of Captain Marvel, as part of the team hired to rewrite the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels into a females-in-command film and, cast strong role models Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson as the lead duo, you are guaranteed a hilarious, enjoyable outcome. The Hustle is the latest must laugh film created and performed by these talented women, in liaison with long time comedian Chris Addison as first-time feature-film director.

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Hilarious and enjoyable 4.5 stars

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