"Hustlers"

 ☆☆☆☆ 

The thing about Hustlers is how it presents itself as one thing when it's something so totally different. It's smart, cunning, slightly devious and spectacularly confident, just like the women at its core, with a final scene that pulls all of its threads together for a nifty, brilliant coda.

Based on a true story, Hustlers begins in late 2007 with strippers at a "gentleman's club" frequented by Wall Street investment bankers and hedge fund CEOs — the very ones who got away with it. Destiny (Constance Wu) is the new girl, befriended by the club's star, Ramona (Jennifer Lopez). Booze, drugs, sex and cash flow with ferocity until one day in September 2008 when it all comes crashing to an end. That's when Hustlers switches from risqué backstage drama into a daring criminal heist.

Dependent on the economic largesse of the men they strip for, the ladies of the club fall onto hard times until Ramona comes up with a plan. She is, Destiny relates to a journalist (Julia Stiles) investigating the story years later, the mastermind. And what a plan: The less you know about it before seeing Hustlers the better, but it's by turns funny, moving, achingly real, bracingly blunt, and frequently downright thrilling. Director Lorraine Scafaria (whose Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is criminally underrated) has a surefire hand at balancing the highs and lows of a story that is as wild, surprising and consistently engaging as the masterminds who came up with it in the first place.

Viewed Sept. 14, 2019 -- AMC Sunset 5

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