Having revisited
Goodfellas, it reminded me of how much I dislike
American Hustle. I can see how that film tried very hard to be
Goodfellas but it failed in pretty much every way. (Its cinematic peer,
The Wolf of Wall Street, does a much better job in that front ... this, of course, affirms one of my tongue-in-cheek comments after seeing it: if anyone is going to remake
Goodfellas, it should be Martin Scorsese).
In general, DOR has rubbed me the wrong way ever since I saw
I Heart Huckabees, which was something that should have had my name written all over it but in the end failed to deliver for me. It was unfocused, uninteresting and satisfies the true definition of pretension. The only other films of his I've seen were
The Fighter (decent but nothing really to write home about) and of course, this.
As a film with a plot, it seems to be stuck on second gear the whole time (
Goodfellas never had that problem ... "two-and-a-half hour trailer" and all that). If it is supposed to be a heist film, then it needs to move like clockwork at the very least, even if its pace is more leisurely compared to most heist films (think Melville's).
But this is often talked about as a film that's much more about characters, including and especially from its auteur. But even as a character piece, it also fails. There's either not much of a consistency (Bradley Cooper's character) or it relies on stock types and/or situations (the other three). There really wasn't anything about any of the characters that compelled me to go along with the ride. The closest was from both Christian Bale and Amy Adams's characters but I think it's because both of them are disciplined actors who are always about grounding their performances in something concrete.
I also kept thinking about other films I could have been watching instead like
The Sting (both clockwork plot and charismatic characters) or
Boogie Nights (another
Goodfellas offspring and another one with a 70s soundtrack and look).
While this goes more into DOR in general, the thing that bugs the hell out of me with him - other than his notorious working relationships with his actors (Lily Tomlin, George Clooney ... and apparently more recently, Amy Adams) - is his notion of improvisation. The rationale is that if you let the actors explore their characters freely, you can uncover something interesting or perhaps a great truth. First off, DOR does not strike me as a Cassavetes, who did what he did out of both a love for the craft of acting and a desire to create something truly different (that reminds me of another film that could have seen:
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie [1976 version]). And second, improvisation really only works when it is grounded in something, usually it's [either] the characters or the narrative or both. It's hardly ever done for its own sake but rather to "open up a scene" or to "give more dimension" but it is always within the parameters of its original basis. Scorsese and Altman knew this and this is why they have/had used it so well. DOR's complete free form results in muddled storytelling and unclear characters.
Finally, the fact he was nominated Best Director for 2013 is insulting to the profession of a director. DOR does not strike me as a director because his vision seems to be "no vision". And if Fellini taught me anything through 8 1/2, it's that vision is important for a director to have. Furthermore, it is having that vision that allows the "openness" to occur. Yeah, Altman allowed for improvisation, but he was not afraid to put his foot down or to intervene if something wasn't working. I don't think DOR ever put his foot down on something ... well, not in that way.
In the end, it was one of the most mediocre Best Picture nominations I know of recently.
(Yeah I realize I should have written this in late 2013/early 2014. Better late than never I guess. Plus I have some atoning to do
=] )