This film has Robert Wagner, Stephen McHattie, a hot naked chick and a bunch of non-American actors trying desperately to suppress their accents. I'll give director Stuart Cooper credit in that he realizes he can't do much about that fourth thing, so he tries to get as much mileage out of the first three as he can. That's still not enough, though, to salvage a plot that's so stupid that even soap opera writing staffs would have turned their noses up at it. And yes, that includes the doofuses who were writing Days of Our Lives when they made Marlena get possessed by the devil.
Maya (Bobbie Phillips) is a surprisingly inhibited con woman who seduces men so her boyfriend Tony (Benjamin Sadler) can rifle through their wallets and siphon money out of their bank accounts. Then, before the poor guys can whip it out, Tony busts in playing the jealous husband and runs them off. It's not the most successful scam in the world, as evidenced by the aluminum trailer down by the river where Maya and Tony live.
A smarter and much more violent criminal named Pierce (Stephen McHattie) then recruits them for a bigger scheme. It seems a rich woman wants to divorce her husband and needs compromising photos of him. Maya is supposed to compromise him while Tony takes the pictures. The husband, Martin (Thomas Heinze), proves surprisingly resistant to Maya's charms, prolonging the scam until Tony is nearly climbing the walls in jealousy.
Martin and Maya eventually fall into bed, but that's when she finds out he's got his own agenda. It turns out that Maya is a dead ringer for Martin's rich wife, so he wants Maya to impersonate her and change the pre nup that will leave Martin with nothing after a divorce. To do that, Maya will eventually have to fool Felix Baumgartner (Robert Wagner), the lawyer who's known Martin's rich wife all her life. It all leads to a string of double crosses and a couple of killings, none of which make a lick of sense, before wrapping up with a scene where you can practically see screenwriter David Howard trying and failing to explain all the holes in his story until he collapses from exhaustion.
As I mentioned before, not everything about Hustle is horrible. Robert Wagner is always nice to see. Stephen McHattie looks mean enough to make any character seem threatening, even when Pierce displays a frat boy's sense of sexual humor. Bobbie Phillips is also a proficient B-movie actress who looks better nude than clothed. Director Cooper also keeps you waiting until the film is half over before showing off Phillips' form, so at least there's some anticipation up 'til then.
The rest of the movie is fairly bad and after Phillips takes it all off, things go even more downhill. To start with, Benjamin Sadler hasn't got a clue what to do and at times resembles nothing so much as that Will Ferrell character from Saturday Night Live who couldn't modulate the sound of his own voice. I don't know what nationality Thomas Heinze is, but it was almost uncomfortable watching him struggle with every syllable he spoke to keep his accent from leaking out. The whole "impersonate someone to change a pre nup" thing is so dumb it'll make you want to stick thumb tacks into that little web of skin between your forefinger and thumb. The dialog includes not one, not two, but three uses of the word "frickin". And topping it all off is an incessant saxophone riff that will have you regretting the instrument was ever invented.
A nice as Phillips looks in her birthday suit, she's not naked nearly long enough to make this film worth anyone's time.
Maya (Bobbie Phillips) is a surprisingly inhibited con woman who seduces men so her boyfriend Tony (Benjamin Sadler) can rifle through their wallets and siphon money out of their bank accounts. Then, before the poor guys can whip it out, Tony busts in playing the jealous husband and runs them off. It's not the most successful scam in the world, as evidenced by the aluminum trailer down by the river where Maya and Tony live.
A smarter and much more violent criminal named Pierce (Stephen McHattie) then recruits them for a bigger scheme. It seems a rich woman wants to divorce her husband and needs compromising photos of him. Maya is supposed to compromise him while Tony takes the pictures. The husband, Martin (Thomas Heinze), proves surprisingly resistant to Maya's charms, prolonging the scam until Tony is nearly climbing the walls in jealousy.
Martin and Maya eventually fall into bed, but that's when she finds out he's got his own agenda. It turns out that Maya is a dead ringer for Martin's rich wife, so he wants Maya to impersonate her and change the pre nup that will leave Martin with nothing after a divorce. To do that, Maya will eventually have to fool Felix Baumgartner (Robert Wagner), the lawyer who's known Martin's rich wife all her life. It all leads to a string of double crosses and a couple of killings, none of which make a lick of sense, before wrapping up with a scene where you can practically see screenwriter David Howard trying and failing to explain all the holes in his story until he collapses from exhaustion.
As I mentioned before, not everything about Hustle is horrible. Robert Wagner is always nice to see. Stephen McHattie looks mean enough to make any character seem threatening, even when Pierce displays a frat boy's sense of sexual humor. Bobbie Phillips is also a proficient B-movie actress who looks better nude than clothed. Director Cooper also keeps you waiting until the film is half over before showing off Phillips' form, so at least there's some anticipation up 'til then.
The rest of the movie is fairly bad and after Phillips takes it all off, things go even more downhill. To start with, Benjamin Sadler hasn't got a clue what to do and at times resembles nothing so much as that Will Ferrell character from Saturday Night Live who couldn't modulate the sound of his own voice. I don't know what nationality Thomas Heinze is, but it was almost uncomfortable watching him struggle with every syllable he spoke to keep his accent from leaking out. The whole "impersonate someone to change a pre nup" thing is so dumb it'll make you want to stick thumb tacks into that little web of skin between your forefinger and thumb. The dialog includes not one, not two, but three uses of the word "frickin". And topping it all off is an incessant saxophone riff that will have you regretting the instrument was ever invented.
A nice as Phillips looks in her birthday suit, she's not naked nearly long enough to make this film worth anyone's time.