Inspired by Jessica Pressler's New York Magazine story "The Hustlers at Scores", Lorena Scafaria's Hustlers is an all-woman, all-glamour adaptation that fails to take off.
Hustlers follows a gang of savvy New York strippers as they attempt to turn their lives around after the 2008 stock market crash, manipulating Wall Street workers into forgettable nights of booze and drugs, with the sole purpose of maxxing their credit cards. The story follows Destiny (Constance Wu) who is out of her depth as the new girl at the club, but is soon seduced by the racy environment after being taken under the wing of the alluring Ramona (Jennifer Lopez).
JLo has a commanding presence on-screen, wowing the audience in the scene that introduces her character. Still, her overall performance as feisty, money-hungry Ramona is less than remarkable no thanks to the absence of an aggressiveness we often see in her. She and Wu work together seamlessly, yet the evolution of their friendship doesn't delve any deeper than the mutual want to achieve their own piece of the American Dream.
Wu delivers a mediocre act far removed from her past work, floundering to find that same vibrancy she had in her breakout film Crazy Rich Asians. Side-liners Keke Palmer (Scream Queens) and Lili Reinhart (Riverdale) round out Ramona and Destiny's Robin Hood-esque sisterhood but take a backseat when the trouble hits.
Misled by the in-your-face crime and passion the trailer boasts, audiences will be disappointed by a story that only just skims the surface of what Pressler's article conveys. Director and writer Scafaria's dialogue also lacks oomph which jeopardises scenes that could have packed more of an emotional punch.
For a film driven by women both on and off-screen, it's disheartening to see that the characters' sexualisation is at its forefront, rather than their development. Ramona and Destiny both end the film where they began without having grown from their experiences, an ill-conceived notion that solidifies Hustlers downfall, along with the actors' lack of emotional range.
Despite the diversity of the cast and the film's redemption via a killer soundtrack and sultry cinematography, Hustlers might just be hard done by come awards season.
Slow-paced and at times, repetitive, Hustlers is a redundant flick whose execution falls flat of the thrill and drama that's synonymous with facts of the true story at its heart.
★: 6/10
Feature image courtesy of STX Films