Hands-Down my favorite thing about the holidays is the plethora of good movies that are released in theaters. If I had to pick the movie that I was most excited to see this holiday season, it had to be American Hustle. American Hustle looked hilarious and I'm a big fan of both the cast members and the director/writer, David O. Russell. American Hustle had all of the ingredients to be a movie that I would love.

We saw it on Christmas Eve at a sold-out screening in Century City. Everyone in the audience was buzzing, clearly pumped for the film. We were ready to be dazzled.

 Christian Bale and Amy Adams play con artists, who get caught and in efforts to escape jail time they make a deal to help an overeager FBI agent ( Bradley Cooper) entrap a New Jersey politician (Jeremy Renner). The story is loosely based on true events. 

American Hustle is funny. It's laugh-out-loud funny. They guy sitting next to us was doubling over and could best be described as "howling" in laughter.

The dialogue is snappy and witty. The characters and the situations in which they find themselves are outlandish. It's part horrifying and part hilarious to see Bale and Cooper in the least sexy roles of their lives. Bale is nearly unrecognizable with an enormous beer-gut and the worlds most elaborate comb-over. Oh Christian!

The story is solid, but likely would not have been nearly as entertaining with a different cast. The casting couldn't have been more perfect. I'm a huge Jennifer Lawrence fan and she steals the show as Bale's antagonistic housewife, who is a complete loose cannon. I wish Lawrence had a bigger role in the film.

The movie is set in the late 70's/early 80's and the costumes are characters in their own right. There is a lot of cleavage going on in the film! 

My only fault with the film is the pacing. It was sluggish, especially in the last third. The film should have been shortened by about fifteen minutes for a tighter over-all result. I wasn't thoroughly engaged in the film and although I enjoyed it, it isn't likely something that I would watch a second time.