Hustlers Review

Lorene Scafaria read an article about strippers who drugged the wolves of Wall Street and stole their money and thought that this would be a film that would break a glass ceiling.

The first half of this film had promise. It was fast paced and showed the life of strippers in a very tasteful and sexy way. The camera is always different when a woman is behind it but it became inconsistent are far too repetitive.

I don’t think having Constance Wu being that timid as a stripper made for a compelling protagonist. I was excited to see this freshman learn from the best of the best but that was also cut short.

When Jennifer Lopez came out, I thought it was going to be game over. Ms. Ramona came out looking absolutely gorgeous as hell and performed her striptease. I was in awe of JLO, her beauty, her sexuality and her athleticism in this role was unmatched. There was only one striptease in the entire film… I wanted more. There could have definitely been away to balance both but they failed to do so. Also, promising to teach someone how to strip and then NOT having them do their own striptease in the film was very underwhelming.

I also don’t appreciate the current discourse, that these women are badasses for doing what they did in this film. Yes, it’s a true story but people are sitting here and glorifying these actions. These women drugged and stole money from men and that’s not okay. There have been plenty of complaints for other films – The Wolf of Wall Street – for glorifying that lifestyle, yet Hustlers gets a free pass because it’s made by women and JLO is fierce in it? I don’t think so.

This film is mediocre and definitely overhyped. I don’t need people comparing this film to Goodfellas or saying it’s better than The Wolf of Wall Street. Hustlers is a solid film and a great look at how sex workers handled the crash in 2008 but it doesn’t do anything different.