‘The Hustle’ Review: Hustles You Into a Coma

Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson might actually be two of the greatest hustlers in the world because they were actually able to convince me to see The Hustle, a movie which has the distinction of being one of the worst films I’ve seen so far this year. It’s a predictable, shallow, unfunny mess that will put you to sleep for the entirety of its 94 minute running time.

The Hustle is a female-swapped remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which itself is a remake of Bedtime Story. Josephine (Hathaway) is a classy and refined hustler who has swindled millions away from rich men using all the tricks of the trade, but when the uncultured and crass Lonnie (Wilson) visits her town to do some hustling of her own, Josephine believes that Lonnie’s subpar skills will scare off all of her potential marks. After repeated attempts to try and teach her more sophisticated hustles, the two con artists agree to pick a single mark and whoever can hustle $500,000 out of him first wins and the loser has to leave the city for good. May the best con artist win.

In the end, however, it’s the audience who ultimately loses and gets hustled. There’s simply nothing funny or smart about the whole film. Most of its attempted humor comes at the expense of Rebel Wilson. Every joke is aimed at how inept she is or her weight; basically how she’s not Anne Hathaway. It’s not funny, just cruel and sad.

There’s absolutely no substance or soul to The Hustle. It’s an empty shell of a film that only exists to take up space. While I have yet to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, I also hear that it’s pretty much a scene for scene remake of the film so it doesn’t even bring anything new to the table and just follows the same beats as its predecessor. There’s absolutely nothing redeeming about this film. The Hustle is a terrible film that you shouldn’t get conned into seeing.