Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Hustle’ on Amazon Prime, in Which Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson Flail Their Way Through a ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ Remake

The Hustle hits Amazon Prime in the middle of a worldwide pandemic lockdown, therefore posing a difficult question: If you’re off work, bored and have consumed every other piece of available content, is it viable viewing? The movie, which pairs Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson, is a remake of a remake, a gender-swapped version of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Michael Caine and Steve Martin, which updated 1964’s Bedtime Story, starring David Niven and Marlon Brando. The Hustle was a non-factor at the box office in 2019, so maybe it’ll be less of a non-factor in the streaming arena.

THE HUSTLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Josephine Chesterfield (Hathaway) is the world’s most sophisticated swindler, using her grace and charm to con gullible dolts out of their riches. She’s so prolific, she has an oceanside estate in the French Riviera, in Beaumont-sur-Mer, a popular vacation spot for stupid-rich sots ripe for grifting. One day on a train, she overhears Penny Rust (Wilson) sob-story her way into a free lunch, and before long, this low-rent fraudmeister uses a little light blackmail to weasel her way into Josephine’s sphere.

Josephine reluctantly agrees to teach Penny how not to be a lout who keeps falling down and threatening to eat a lot of food, and they become odd-couple partners.They team up for a while,  bilking morons out of engagement rings with rocks the size of muder hornets on them. But their sisterhood sours and they soon become competitors. Right on cue, an easy mark galumphs into Beaumont-sur-Mer, Thomas Westerburg (Alex Sharp), a meek tech dweeb in a shlumpy sweater. They make a wager: The first to fleece this rube of a half-mil gets out of town forever.

So Josephine does her tried-and-true routine — she wiggles into an elegant gown and sidles up to Thomas at the roulette table. As she goes high, Penny goes low, pretending to be blind, wildly walloping bystanders with her cane as she gropes her way into the scene. Josephine appeals to the brain, and Penny, to the gut. Which methodology will work?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is as good a time as any to mention that I rewatched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in preparation for this review, and it holds up remarkably well in its sort of sexist, 1980s kind of way. Martin throws himself into the declasse role, and his execution of the physical comedy is exquisite. Without his commitment to the performance, the movie might not warrant a shrug.

Performance Worth Watching: Rebel Wilson is no Steve Martin. (If there’s a female heir to Martin’s comic method, it’s Kristen Wiig.) But as is her wont, she bulldozes headlong and willy-nilly into the role, seemingly desperate to wring a laugh from the meager script.

Memorable Dialogue: A prime example of The Hustle‘s brand of jocose banter:

Josephine: “What brings you to the south of France?”

Penny: “An airplane.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The Hustle bungles a great opportunity to punch up and clobber patriarchal fundaments. It’s so witless, it might not know what patriarchal fundaments are. One scene puts the movie’s grand comedic failures in microcosm: Dean Norris plays a stereotype of a moronic blueblood Texan hoping to land Josephine’s hand in marriage, and where a smart movie would play the scenario for satire, The Hustle goes for cheap laughs. The Norris character has a “funny name,” Howard Bacon, and the thing about “funny names” is, they’re almost never funny; Penny is garbed up as Josephine’s homely, insane sister, part of a plot to torpedo the engagement; scenery is eaten, climbed upon and/or humped.

The scene begs comparison to Martin’s warped-sibling routine, not because Martin makes less obvious, and therefore funnier, choices, and renders the scene entirely about his gleefully mad performance. The Hustle muffs the punt, blowing a chance to expand upon the formula fulfilled by the previous movie. It could shift the comedy to target the loathsomeness of a sweaty creep scoring a trophy bride, but instead, Wilson sports repugnant dentures and pummels a mannequin, while we very conspicuously not laugh.

Meanwhile, Hathaway never convinces us Josephine is more than a paycheck role, and Sharp is a bland afterthought. (Contrast the Sharp character to Glenne Headley’s in Scoundrels, where her tender sincerity made us believe she might actually change the hearts of Martin and Caine’s ruthless cynics.) The script fails to transcend fat jokes and zingers like “tits for brains,” and completely blows every chance to be funny or progressive. It’s unequivocally regressive in terms of both comedy and sexual politics. In the gender-flip realm, it’s more Ghostbusters dud than High Fidelity gold.

Our Call: SKIP IT. A fool and their time is soon parted.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Hustle on Amazon Prime