Hustlers (2019)

My primary thought is that I'm happy someone made a film that shines a spotlight on a very serious problem currently becoming more common amongst sex workers. As a sex worker myself, I am exposed to the perspectives and activities of a wide array of sex workers on a daily basis. I have observed an increasing amount of sex workers who feel validated in their decisions to become con-artists, bragging proudly about robbing their own clients. While I'm happy that this is starting to be discussed in the mainstream media, that doesn't mean it's a pleasant thing to observe. It's tragic that in an era when sex work does seem to be getting to a place where it's more openly accepted, we have unabashed behavior like this which is going to make people second guess any progress we may have established thus far - it's heavily counterproductive. Overall, the movie mostly just made me feel frustrated, sad, and worried for the future - but it was the correlation to reality that I couldn't get off of my mind. I wasn't very enveloped in the world of the film itself - mostly just reminded of my worries regarding the industry and the way it's pupils and society will carry on being effected by on another from here on out.

As a film alone, it was okay. The performances were sufficient but nothing that stood out, which is more a result of the writing. Uninteresting characters caught up in uninteresting events. Overall, the plot FEELS like it should be entertaining, but the movie is a bit redundant - once you get into the thick of it, you're basically watching a repetitive cycle with not much movement to it. And as it goes on, you kind of like the characters less and less, with no real conflicting energies - so it kind of just gets worse as it goes. The movie could have use some cutting - there's not enough depth or complexity to it to validate a nearly 2 hour run time, unfortunately.

The movie did have a handful of very amusing moments, but it was not enough to redeem the thing as a whole. It's not a bad movie, but it's also not a good movie...