This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Inspired By a True Tale
Plot Overview
2007. To help support her aging
grandmother (Wai Ching Ho), sexy “Diamond from the Bronx”
Dorothy “Dot”—aka Destiny—(Constance Wu) moves from adult
entertainment in the tulies to play a big time New York
strip club. She is routinely taken advantage of. Fortuitously,
veteran pole dancer Ramona Vega (Jennifer Lopez) mentors this
“triple threat” (New/gorgeous/Asian) enabling her to make
serious money from the fat cats of Wall Street come to get their jollies.
It's relatively harmless except for leaving hard-to-explain gaps in
her résumé.
September 29, 2008. “The
crash put everybody out of business,” says the narrator. After
floundering for a while, Destiny along with fellow strippers Annabelle
(Lili Reinhart) and Mercedes (Keke Palmer) agree to Ramona's
“fishing” scheme. They troll for rich marks outside
the club, add a mix of ketamine and MDMA (Ecstasy)
to their drinks, and bring them in for the time of their life. They'll
scarcely remember it until they see their maxed-out credit card statements
they were barely coherent enough to sign for. This is justified because
the girls know these men to have made their money illicitly and then
wasted themselves on drugs anyway.
When their “business” grows too big to manage it all themselves, they bring in outside talent to take up the slack. A shifty Dawn (Madeline Brewer) compromises their regulars, so they have to expand to pulling in the more unpredictable strangers to fleece. Here someone might actually get hurt enough to overcome his embarrassment to go to the police.
Ideology
The clear message of the proverb that Dot would have done well to heed is (Prov. 1:10-19):My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
They mess up the lives of people, and it can come back on them to mess up their own lives, especially once the police get involved. Mind you, these are not ‘bad’ girls per se, not the original crew at least. They've got each other's backs, and they take care not to hurt their clients more than they deserve. They draw the line at sexual favors. They pray before their meals and are lavish in tips and Christmas gifts. They attentively raise their young daughters, and in Dorothy's case she supports her grandmother as well. And yet Dorothy fell in with this hustling crowd and it came back on her.
Production Values
“” (2019) was written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, based on an article, ‘Hustlers (2019)’ by Jessica Pressler in New York Magazine. It stars Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, and Julia Stiles. The performances were admirable, especially from Lopez and Wu who had great chemistry together. As a pole dancer JenLo was a consummate gymnast. They all looked a bit gaudy for my tastes except for Julia Stiles who played a reporter.
MPAA rated it R for pervasive sexual material, drug content, language and nudity. It was filmed in New York City, New York, USA. The soundtrack trying to capture period club music left me unimpressed.
Review Conclusion w/ Christian Recommendation
This one had more gravatus as a documentary than lift of entertainment. Still, it moved along quickly and was easy to track. I wouldn't go out of my way to see it but would enjoy it opportunistically.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well, at least you can't see the strings. Video Occasion: When there's nothing else showing. Suspense: Predictable. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
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