Thursday, August 22, 2019

Blu-ray Review: The Hustle


*This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% my own.


AMAZON
Wouldn't you've believed a comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson would be funny?

Unfortunately, that's not the case with The Hustle which was just released to Blu-ray and DVD this week from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. It's also available on Digital HD and On Demand.

Directed by Chris Addison, the film is a gender swapping remake of 1988's comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which itself was a remake of the 1964 classic Bedtime Story.

The Hustle centers around Penny (played by Rebel Wilson), a small-time con artist who makes a living by defrauding wealthy men. On a trip to the French Riviera, Penny runs into Josephine Chesterfield (Anne Hathaway) who just happens to also be a con artist. Eventually, the duo make a bet on who can swindle a young tech billionaire (Alex Sharp) out of his money.

The movie was critical failure but it did manage to pull in $95 million at the box office on a $21 million budget.

Blu-ray Special Features include:
  • Hitting the Mark – We’ll reveal the plans behind the film: from Anne Hathaway’s initial discussions with Jac Schaeffer and Rebel Wilson about updating the story for a modern era to Chris Addison’s collaboration with the cast to craft the comedy on set.
  • Comedy Class – Every actor in the film brings a very different comedic style to their roles. This comic clash helps sell the conflict between Josephine, Penny, and the other characters in the film.
  • Con Artists – The artists behind the camera help bring the story to life…in this case costume designer Emmer Fryer and production designer Alice Normington show off their skills.
  • Feature Commentary by Director Chris Addison 


Final Thoughts
While I've never been a big fan of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the one thing that I did like about the comedy was the chemistry between the actors Steven Martin and Michael Caine and their ability to play off of each other. Sadly, this isn't the case for Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway as they have absolutely no chemistry! Typically, Hathaway always gives a good performance but not in The Hustle. She overacts through the entire 94-minute runtime with a really bad British accent. Why didn't the producers hire a British actress to play a British character?

Rebel Wilson gives another bad performance. Honestly, I don't know why filmmakers keep hiring as she doesn't have the ability to act!

The script is godawful! Whoever greenlit this script should be fired from their job!!! While the basic plot does somewhat resembles Bedtime Story and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the dialogue is unintelligent and downright cringeworthy for almost the entire film. Prior to working on the script, the screenwriters should have taken a crash course on how to write a good a comedy because they had no clue what they were doing.

Overall, The Hustle is one of the worst remakes ever produced. Save your money and skip this garbage film!

No comments:

Post a Comment

I adore reading reader feedback! I will, however, remove all spam and pointless comments.

Please take note that I have the right to delete comments from this site. Please only post constructive and respectful feedback.