Film Review: American Hustle (2013)

There's a scene in David O. Russell's previous film, Silver Linings Playbook, in which all the major figures in Pat Solitano's (Bradley Cooper) life finally collide in one room. His feisty dance partner/love interest, his parents and one of his best friends are all thrown together so that they can hash out their differences, and gradually reach a point from which they can progress to the finale. It's a crucial scene, one that shuffles all the different relationships and fundamentally changes the stakes of the story, but it's also the worst scene in the entire movie; it lacks any particular focus, and feels like the early stages of an improv session in which the actors are trying to find their way to a conclusion. It has plenty of energy, but it's energy that is being fired off in every direction at once.

Film Review: The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

"Heartthrob" Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a stunt motorcyclist working as part of a travelling carnival. He rides into town, performs for the locals, then leaves. Given his nickname and outlaw allure, it's hardly surprising that he leaves behind a string of women as well, and upon returning to Schenectady, New York, he discovers that Romina (Eva Mendes), a woman he had a brief encounter with a year earlier, is the mother to his child. Determined to do right by his son because he's afraid that growing up without a father would turn him into a drifter like him, Luke sticks around when the carnival leaves town.

Film Review: Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook, apart from having one of the most pointlessly awkward titles in recent memory, is in effect two separate films. On the one hand, it's a comedy-drama about two very pretty, slightly crazy people coming to know each other and maybe figuring out how to be better together, and on the other, a sports movie in which those characters have to train for a big competition. Neither of those two films is terrible by any means, but they are so clumsily grafted together that it winds up being the cinematic equivalent of a set of shelves that have been built without the use of a spirit level. It functions well enough, but everything is uneven to the detriment of the whole and to no discernible purpose.