The crime genre has long been dominated by men doing bad things. Think of the all-time best crime movies — Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, The French Connection — and you’ll notice how homogenous they are. Although they are not necessarily formulaic, they do follow a pattern, and it’s one where bad men live dangerously, reach enviable highs, and eventually suffer huge downfalls. Sometimes, we root for them to win, as misguided as their actions might be, like in Dog Day Afternoon. Other times, we are fascinated by their journeys without ever empathizing with them, like in The Godfather. Whatever approach we take, a crime movie are often riveting and engaging. The best of them, however, are thought-provoking and intelligent, too, and no crime movie in the past decade has been more so than Lorene Scafaria’s 2019 crime dramedy Hustlers.
Based on Jessica Pressler’s 2018 article The Hustlers at Scores, the film centers around a group of New York City strippers who begin drugging their high-profile clients, including CEOs and stock traders, and maxing their credit cards. Starring an ensemble led by Constance Wu and a career-best Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers was a breath of fresh air when it premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival to rave reviews. Commercial success ensued, with the film grossing a whopping $157 million against a production budget of $20 million, making it one of 2019’s biggest non-MCU success stories. At the time, Hustlers was declared one of the best movies of the year and a breakthrough in the careers of Scafaria, Lopez, and Wu. Now, five years later, it’s very easy to see it as not only a towering dramatic achievement, but also the best crime movie of the 2010s that redefined the way we see such stories on the big screen.
Reframing crime
Hustlers mainly centers on Dorothy, aka Destiny (Constance Wu), a young New York-based stripper struggling to make ends meet while supporting her grandmother. Ambitious, yet not particularly resourceful, Destiny soon becomes the protégé of Ramona Vega (Lopez), the club’s top stripper. Together, they make one hell of a team and rise up the ranks until the 2008 financial crisis strikes and leaves them out of a job. Sometime later, the two reconnect, and Destiny becomes part of Ramona’s new scheme: along with two new young allies, she drugs wealthy men, escorts them to the club, and maxes out their credit cards. No man says anything because pressing the matter would mean confessing to their nightly escapades. Nothing that good lasts forever, though, and the women soon find themselves falling deeper into a hole of their own making.
Brave and refreshingly earnest, Hustlers goes to great lengths to make sure you empathize with these characters — Destiny has a grandmother to look after, Ramona is a single mother supporting a teenager, and the operation’s two young players, Mercedes (Keke Palmer) and Anabelle (Lili Reinhart), are quirkier and more innocent than they admit. The key to making Hustlers unique, however, is its willingness to show the women at their lowest and ugliest; no one is perfect here, and, at the end of the day, these are still criminals targeting all types of men.
There’s a remarkable honesty to Hustlers that’s seldom found in other crime or female-led movies. Scafaria could have very easily victimized these women. However, the writer and director quite intelligently subverts that trope: Ramona was made by her circumstances, but she doesn’t pursue a criminal career because of them; instead, she does so because she wants to and is good at it.
Hustlers allows its women to be ambitious, ruthless, passionate, fiery, angry, frustrated, and endlessly compelling — criminals without hearts of gold. but with pizzazz and courage to spare. This approach makes it easier to appreciate Hustlers both as a crime movie and a female-led vehicle. Not since Thelma & Louise had female criminal characters been depicted with such bravado, such furious lack of restraint.
The system is rigged
Like all the best crime movies, Hustlers has something to say about crime itself, why it happens, why it’s alluring, and why it can’t possibly last. During a particularly impassionate speech, while trying to convince Destiny to join her scam, Ramona urges her to “start thinking like these Wall Street guys,” who earn millions while so many others can’t even retire with dignity. Hustlers captures the anger and exhaustion felt by many in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, using Lopez’s Ramona to voice the thoughts and grievances of thousands, maybe even millions, of people.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Hustlers is astute in its observations and conclusions about the nature of crime and why it’s an inherently flawed institution destined to fail. Ambition begets ambition, and the more people involved, the more trouble ensues. For all their flaws and resourcefulness, none of these women are evil; they’re not even ruthless or dangerous per se, and when faced with the actual consequences of their actions, they can’t help but be humbled and rethink their paths. Unlike so many other crime movies, where the main players are seemingly born to be neck-deep in this treacherous business, the women in Hustlers are real and relatable human beings. They’re not part of some mafia that puts the bodies with the fishes; hell, they don’t even have a safety net. Crime is extremely easy to fall into and, as it turns out, extremely easy to get out of, too, albeit in not-so-pleasant ways.
Perhaps that is Hustlers‘ smartest observation. There is part of Destiny and Ramona that knows these antics are both the symptom of a larger disease and the short-term solution to a long-term problem. Yet, it’s not inescapable, nor is its allure perpetual. Every light eventually dims, and crime requires a justification to exist, especially within a person’s psyche. In Hustlers, there is empowerment in atonement, and the realization of one’s crimes can be just as cathartic as the feeling of committing them and the rewards they produce.
Crime like never before
There are countless positives to Hustlers: Scafaria’s stylish, confident direction, the smart use of shifting narratives, the undeniable visual appeal, and Jennifer Lopez’s career-best, Oscar-worthy performance — her Oscar snub still stings all these years later. On a technical, narrative, and emotional level, Hustlers is unmatched by most other crime movies of the 2010s, with only a few others — A Most Violent Year and Uncut Gems, for example — coming close to it.
However, the film’s greatest strength relies on its willingness to be confrontational and unabashedly forceful. Like its thorny protagonists, Hustlers is a greedy movie: it demands your attention just as much as it longs for your adoration and understanding. In a time when female-led crime movies were either escapist fantasies covered in diamonds and couture (looking at you, Ocean’s 8) or senseless and vapid comedies that were more obnoxious than amusing (The Hustle, for example), Hustlers dared to be aggressive and provocative without losing the emotional connection and the sheer entertainment value that people go to the movies for.
At a time when cinema is very much at an evolutionary stage, we need more movies like Hustlers that make us confront the more difficult sides of our humanity without crucifying us for doing so. After all, there might be a criminal in all of us, and who doesn’t love to see themselves represented on the big screen?
Hustlers is available to stream on Hulu.