The Hustle - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Hustle



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Watching the trailer for The Hustle a few months back got me interested in the film and followed it up with a strange sense of dejavu. I swore I had seen the plot described in the trailer before and it wasn’t till I was watching the opening scenes that it hit me. This was a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with a gender bending twist! As the movie unfolded I realized something. This wasn’t just a remake of one of my favorite Steve Martin comedies ever. It was a full on beat for beat recrafting of the original! Ever second that went by only reinforced that feeling until I literally started predicting what would happen next down to the scene simply due to how closely it was following the script for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Sure the comedy was slightly different due to the comedianesses involved in the process (Rebel Wilson’s brand of comedy is certainly distinctive), but every joke, every gag, every major and minor point in the movie was lifted DIRECTLY from the 1980s comedy with Martin and Michael Caine!

Now, this is both a benefit and a distraction, as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was an absolutely hilarious movie that can’t be repeated. However, copying the beats straight out of one of the best comedies of all time’s playbook makes the otherwise middle of the road comedy actually quite funny. Anne Hathaway shines in her role as the established con artist (the female version of Michael Caine), and her delightful charm and high class wit made the movie rather humorous. Rebel Wilson….well, Rebel is an acquired taste, and outside of Pitch Perfect and Bridesmaids, I don’t really grasp her style of crass humor. Most of the movie was spent with Rebel making fat jokes about herself during the con, and that sort self depreciating humor tends to get old a bit quickly for some people (myself included).

If you’re NOT familiar with the plot of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, then The Hustle will be new to you. The plot focuses on a pair of con artists from differing social classes. The first being Penny Rust (Rebel Wilson), a blue collar grifter from the states who escapes to France to avoid the local fuzz. There she meets up with high class con artist Josephine Chesterfield, who has a sort of monopoly on scamming local rich boys over in her little villa in France. Penny catches on pretty quickly that Josephine is in another class than she is, and the blue collar grifter soon weasels her way into the high class thief’s life.

Frustrated and annoyed, Josephine agrees to teach Penny the tracks of her mastered trade in response for one thing. As soon as Penny learns the trade she gets out of Josephine's little fishing pool and leaves her be. Yeah, you guessed it (or predicted it if you’ve seen Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). Penny is having none of that and wants a bigger piece of the pie, prompting the established con woman into making a deal with the low class grifter. The first person to con a visiting tech millionaire named Thomas (Alex Sharp) wins the right to stay in France, while the other gets out for god.

The Hustle was LAMBASTED critically, garnering a wonderful 14% rotten tomatoes score and getting hammered just about everywhere else online that I could read also. The thing is, The Hustle isn’t that bad. It’s not great mind you, but it is a moderately entertaining remake (beat for beat) of the 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (which is in fact a remake of the 1964 David Niven film Bedtime Story) with a gender bending twist. The movie is nothing but an excuse for the adorable Anne Hathaway to romp around in clingy dresses and posh British accents, while Rebel Wilson deadpans her way through one joke after the other. Sadly it will never rise to the comedic genius collaboration that was Caine and Martin, but the two female actresses do a rather amusing job at playing each other (the scene where Josephine was dancing with Thomas almost rivals the iconic scene from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels).




Rating:

Rated PG-13 on appeal for crude sexual content and language




Video:

Shot entirely using the Arri Alexa digital cameras at 2.8K resolution, The Hustle was transferred to an upscaled (slightly) 4K master before being put on Blu-ray. Even if the master is slightly upscaled, the 1080p Blu-ray disc looks absolutely stunning. The French Riviera is gorgeously lit and sunny, with sharp details all the way around and bright, natural, looking colors. The pinks and yellows of Penny’s scuba suit shine brightly, as does her glittering red ballroom gown, over the ambers and blacks of the French casinos. You can see every intimate crease and line on the actress’s faces, as well as little nuances such as stitching on clothing or the curves on a stone statue. There’s two scenes (that I noticed) where some intermittent banding came into play, but other than that and a few mildly soft scenes the movie is absolutely fantastic to look at.









Audio:

Universal puts on a pretty hefty 7.1 mix for the home video release, and while it’s a solid track, it’s a bit of overkill at the same time. The film is very very much a comedy film to the core, complete with a very front heavy mixing that only utilizes the surrounds for ambiance in some of the cons (like the casino), or for the score to flow through. Said score is lively and rambunctious, adding a fun little lilt to the track, and the dialog is spot on perfect. The mix is about what one would expect, and spot on a dead ringer for your average comedy. The only “problem” is that this IS a comedy track and thus the limits of the 7.1 abilities are never really fully utilized as a result. Nothing wrong with the track or the mixing, but just a limitation of the generic comedy genre as a whole for hugely immersive sound.










Extras:

• Audio Commentary with Director Chris Addison
• Hitting the Mark - Featurette
• Comedy Class - Featurette
• Con Artists - Featurette

Final Score: ​

The Hustle is rather amusing, and actually got me quite a few laughs that I wasn’t expecting. Rebel Wilson is the weak link in the film (as usual), but Hathaway charms her way throughout the little romp with a delightful sense of posh superiority. The movie doesn’t exactly deviate (at all!) from the plot of the 1988 film, but there’s a few twists here and there that got me a good chuckle due to the updated sight gags and the sheer enthusiasm of the actresses. Universal’s Blu-ray is quite stunning, with amazing video and good audio, along with a moderate array of extras to enjoy. The Hustle isn’t exactly a new and fresh take on an old story, but it remakes it well enough to be entertaining enough. Recommended for a rental.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson, Ingrid Oliver, Casper Christensen, Douggie McMeekin, Ashley McGuire
Directed by: Chris Addison
Written by: Jac Schaeffer, Dale Launer, Paul Henning, Stanley Shapiro
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 7.1, French DTS-HD HR 7.1, Spanish DTS 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Universal
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 93 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: August 20th, 2019

Recommendation: Entertaining Rental

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will check it out once on amazon prime/netflix.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Or, enter to win a copy right here on AV NIRVANA!

Enter to Win "The Hustle" on Blu-ray!

(August 19, 2019) Now that we're slogging through the dog days of summer, it's time escape the heat and hunker down for some cool lighthearted humor. Which brings us to our latest Flash Giveaway contest featuring a brand-new Blu-ray copy of The Hustle. Many thanks to Michael Scott and...

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