New to On Demand and DVD: Hustlers

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When the markets were booming, business was good for everyone involved with Wall Street. The good times even trickled down to the clubs where dancers were able to live the high life. But the money machine eventually stopped, and what was simply business veered into something else, as shown in the film Hustlers.

Destiny (Constance Wu), searching for a way to pay the bills, quickly lands a job as a dancer. As the new girl, she finds herself treading water in the every-woman-for-herself field as every male club employee takes a share of her nightly earnings. Destiny is quickly drawn to Ramona (Jennifer Lopez), an experienced dancer who commands the stage and the men who leave their money at her feet.

Destiny needs someone to show her the ropes and help her establish control over her environment and her future. So when Ramona offers just that, she’s immediately hooked. As the story evolves, there is more to the future for Ramona and Destiny.

The expanding relationship between Destiny and Ramona is the backdrop for the film. Their friendship leads to liberties taken with the credit cards of the men they were dancing for and the eventual drugging of their clients.

All of these details are told to a reporter working on an article about the entire situation. Elizabeth (Julia Stiles) is compiling information to tell the story of Ramona, Destiny and the others. As Destiny is telling the story to Elizabeth, we learn what happened all those years before.

Wu really dazzled in Crazy Rich Asians and she takes the lead alongside Lopez here, stealing one scene after another. While she was phenomenal, we needed more Wu, we needed more story and we needed more development for her character.

Despite this being a film that features a number of moments in the clubs, this is not so much a film about nudity and sex as you might believe. Instead, this is a movie about business, and a movie about business devolving into criminality. It’s a film not only illustrating the power women have in their profession, but also the challenges they face in asserting that power.

Although I like some pieces of Hustlers, the momentum is somewhat slowed by the all-too-often insertion of sequences that felt more at home in a music video than a feature film. Motivations of the characters are simplistic and later characters get dropped into the story with little if any background information.

I really liked Wu and I kind of liked Lopez, but those two weren’t quite enough to hustle the film to a conclusion. Instead, I felt like much of the experience drifted in and out and had its progress slowed to a snail’s pace, especially with the lack of source material, thus slowing down Hustlers.

Hustlers is available On Demand and on DVD beginning Dec. 10. Check your cable system for availability