The Hustle is all about the scam, both in theme and also in quality. I’ll get to that latter part in a bit. Penny Rust (Rebel Wilson) runs cheap cons on unsuspecting men as means to make a little money and have a laugh or two while doing it. One of her cons leads her to cross paths with Josephine Chesterfield (Anne Hathaway), who also just so happens to be another con artist, albeit a much better one that plays on a much higher financial plateau. The two take turns trying to out hustle the other while become somewhat friendly along the way. It is when their competitive (and greedy) nature gets the best of them that they start to notice their own flaws…but not until it’s too late.
Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway are the two main stars of The Hustle, with each having a very different brand of comedy. Wilson is all about the slapstick comedy whereas Hathaway goes with the more subdued approach. Ingrid Oliver, Nicholas Woodeson and Alex Sharp round out the next level of supporting actors. No one really stands out, good or bad. This is mostly just Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway going head-to-head hoping that the audience blindly follows.
Director Chris Addison appears to be way over his head with The Hustle. The jokes don’t work. The chemistry is terrible. The story feels fragmented. Rebel Wilson playing such a crass bumpkin is old and isn’t funny. There’s zero imagination there. Anne Hathaway has very little redeeming qualities herself. Again, this is mostly due to the position these poor actors were put in in the first place. And even the post-credits scene is a sad attempt at humor.
As far as letdowns go, The Hustle is a pretty big one. And it’s not because there were crazy high expectations for it or anything like that. It’s simply because it wildly misses it’s mark as a decently funny comedy. All points of humor are contrived and forced. There is simply no pleasure to be taken from it. Rebel Wilson is hit or miss, and Anne Hathaway apparently still can’t shake off the stink from her last released film, Serenity (2019). There are just not enough moments of laughter to warrant spending money to see this for comedic entertainment purposes.
Paying full price to see The Hustle would be a bigger scam than anything anyone tried to pull of in this movie. The Steve Martin/Michael Caine Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) is significantly better in terms of comedy and quality. Candidly speaking, the entire 94 minutes of this unfunny comedy feels like a final skit of Saturday Night Live that is used to just fill those last few minutes of the show. Stay away and save yourselves from disappointment and regret.
