American Hustle: The Strange Effects of Bradley Cooper

Does anyone else have this problem? Lately it seems like whenever I watch a film starring Bradley Cooper it feels like time passes much more slowly. I first noticed it during The Place Beyond the Pines and just put it down to the film being badly in need of a good editor. After all the film spans multiple years, characters and generation and it would only take a little tweaking to the story a more fluid feel and spare my legs the DVT.

American Hustle however follows the same ensemble through events that spanned a few years yet somehow feels longer than the time Solomon Northup spent picking cotton. Partially because all notion of progression over time is lost in a series of non sequitar scenes with seemingly no bearing on the bigger picture. The actual mechanics of the Abscam Scandal, on which the film is based is lost among petty confrontations as the main players try to out-annoy each other. It's like Ocean's Eleven if you replaced all the exposition and heist planning with George Clooney and Brad Pitt engaged in a series of slap fights. Entertaining yes, but it robs the film of drama.

The film can't seem to make its mind up on what it wants to achieve from act one. As Cooper's FBI Agent Richie DiMaso rumbles con artists Irving Rosenfield (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser/Edith Greensley (Amy Adams, donning a variety of ostentatious accents) he blackmails them into lining up four additional arrests. Then it's just altruistic politician Carmine Polito, then it's a prominent mob boss, then it's ten congressmen, which point it needs a really elaborate con to arrest my interest.

The film is so bloated and unstructured that it ends up pushing potentially interesting story elements to the margins. Irving's doomed friendship with Carmine and Jennifer Lawrence's standout performance as his oblivious wife barely get a look in. Particularly egregious when you consider how much Lawrence has featured in the films marketing relative to her actual screen time.

Lawrence's role, both in characterisation and accent, is practically a microcosm of the films goofy tone and over-the-top aesthetics. Big hair, low-cut dresses and valour suits. All of which work for a consistently comedic tone which the film carries for the majority of its run...right up until it doesn't. Suddenly the film takes a really dark turn, the kind the Coen Brothers could make work but comes out of left-field in director David O. Russell's hands.

It isn't helped by coming around the fifth act when you're already hoping for an ending. Nor the fact that the culprit is DiMaso, the petulant, perpetually dissatisfied perm-job who's been begging for slap the entire film. And while his actions make sense in terms of his character the fact that everyone keeps working with him adds a grim air to subsequent scenes.

American Hustle's worst crime is simply not knowing what it wants to be. An outlandish premise and thoroughly game cast are the ingredients for a fun, campy crime caper. But the total absence of pace, tension and context makes the film little more than disposable fun. Then ruins the fun in its determination to emulate Goodfellas. In fact at one point a cameo from a Goodfellas star elevates the films entire mood and quality into something truly nail biting. As though Scorsese is sending a cinematic messenger to Russell saying 'You think you're ready to take the reins, you ain't ready to take 'em an I ain't givin' 'em up.'

Lex Luthor: Eisenberg no Heisenberg?

So...that happened. The last week or so has been so awash with casting rumours that it took a while to establish if this was real or just pumped out by the studios to generate more free press. A stupid assumption really, Man of Steel 2: Justice League All-Stars has seen so many changes and additions it hardly needs to make up stuff to get talked about. Though I'm sure Warner Bros would prefer we weren't talking about it with the same tone one might discuss reconstructing the Titanic or the Wii U.

But whatever the consequences it's true. Jesse Eisenberg, of Zombieland and The Social Network, is going to be Lex Luthor in Man of Steel 2: Electric Boogaloo. My opinion? Good move. I like Eisenberg and not just because my girlfriend thinks I resemble him. The fact is back in the day it was easy to write off Eisenberg as a Michael Cera clone; awkward, stammering skinny white guy inexplicably coming out on top. It was so obvious that apparently even he knew it and endeavoured to avoid that terrible fate Cera had suffered; typecasting.

The Social Network demonstrated how far Eisenberg could take the introvert, playing a detached, calculating, yet somehow endearing Mark Zuckerberg. To follow he went on to play a Seth Rogan-esque slacker in 30 Minutes or Less, the only film where the title explains roughly how long the film would remain in cultural consciousness. And as a member of the orthodox Jewish community and  only thing worth seeing in the crime drama Holy Rollers.

So Eisenberg has the chops to play a Lex Luthor but there's still the one thing everyone's gonna be snarking about on Twitter. At age 30 (and hardly looking it) he'll be the youngest film version of Lex to date after Gene Hackman (48 for Superman) and Kevin Spacey (46 for Superman Returns). And while he's the same age as Superman himself, Henry Cavill, the idea of a younger and specifically young-looking Lex will be hard for some to get on board with.

The reason I don't see it being a major problem though is because I see nothing about Lex Luthor, especially John Byrne's 1986 redesigned buisinessman Lex that most are familiar with, as intrinsically old. After all, who is Lex Luthor? An insanely successful businessman, incredibly proud of with achievements, possessing a genius level intellect, scrupulous morals and a huge seething resentment of Superman. None of these things are the exclusive domain of the old. 

Even today American culture has this idealised image of the hardworking capitalist. Men who've spent lifetimes building an empire on nothing but sweat and pep talks from Uncle Sam. But that doesn't exist anymore, not since the first dot-com millionaire made the Fortune 500 on his parents computer. We live in an age of young billionaires with questionable morals, billionaires just like like Mark Zuckerberg. In fact that's probably what made the penny drop at Warner Bros in the first place.

So yeah Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor? Warner Bros can put that in the win category. Doesn't make me anymore confident that Man of Steel 2:Rise of the Multi-Bear, won't collapse under its own weight but...baby steps.

Oh and about that title? Yeah I would've been psyched to see Superman fight Walter White too. It's thrilling to see a goofy, comic actor like Bryan Cranston getting all these great roles. But Cranston's whole thing is mild mannered guys thrown into dangerous situations and seeing how crazy they go trying to deal. It'd be difficult to pull that off while still taking him serious as a credible threat to freaking Superman. Maybe after he's taken on Godzilla...