Hustlers (2019) or, Strip and Rob, Go Girl!

1/27/2024

Hustlers (2019) or, Strip and Rob, Go Girl!

♥♥

A string of sexually charged stills of the scantily clad female stars of the film makes up most of this poster for Lorene Scafaria's Hustlers

After the 2008 financial crisis tightened the belt around New York's surviving Wall Street elite, a group of strippers who depended economically on these men decided to go to extremes to keep - and accelerate - their luxurious lifestyles...

Hustlers is written and directed by Lorene Scafaria (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)), based on the 2015 New York magazine article The Hustlers at Scores by Jessica Pressler.

Can one use stripping as a means to female emancipation, or is the discipline per definition degrading? Scafaria's superficial, consumeristicly fixated bubble of a film asks that question. Hustlers attempts to work as a runaway train that one boards and becomes seduced by, - probably against one's better judgment, - just as the woman characters around Jennifer Lopez's (Out of Sight (1998)) veteran stripper leader do in the movie. Men on Wall Street screw the world over, and women strippers then screw over these men, - that's the story here. Go look in the phonebook for additional depth, if you require it. - It isn't available in Hustlers.

The plot unfolds in snappy, short, unmemorable scenes with lots of sleazy, accompanying hit songs. Hustlers doesn't teach its (presumably mostly young) audience anything; nothing edifying at least. Offensively and decidedly unedifyingly, however, it teaches its viewers that one can get away with a wealth of crime by being a smiling, laughing, over-consuming, attractive stripper, who believes that anything goes in the 'holy' name of women's liberation.

Lorene Scafaria: The Meddler (2015) - Stars elevate Scafaria's mother-daughter romcom

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 20.7 mil. $

Box office: 157.5 mil. $

= Huge hit (returned 7.60 times its cost)

[Hustlers premiered 7 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 110 minutes. Lopez was paid 9 mil. $ for her performance. Shooting took place from March - May 2019 in New York. The film opened #2, behind It Chapter Two, to a 33.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it remained in the top 5 for another 3 weekends (#5-#2-#4), grossing 104.9 mil. $ (66.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 9.4 mil. $ (6 %) and Australia with 6.5 mil. $ (4.1 %). The studio reportedly spent 38 mil. $ promoting the film. It was nominated for a Golden Globe and 3 Independent Spirit awards, among many other honors. It additionally made a reported 5.5 mil. $ on the North-American home video market. Scafaria returned with Succession (2021-23) but has has yet to make her theatrical return. Lopez returned in 6 short and music video credits prior to her theatrical return in Marry Me (2022); Constance Wu (Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022)) in Fresh off the Boat (2015-20)), with a voice performance in Wish Dragon (2021) and with a physical theatrical performance in I Was a Simple Man (2021). Hustlers is certified fresh at 87 % with a 7.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

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1/27/2024

Hustlers (2019) or, Strip and Rob, Go Girl!

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