Written Reviews

For all its touchy subjects and ambiguous answers, “Hustlers” is never anything less than energetic, freight-train-fast, and impeccably plotted

Kate Elbrand – Indiewire

What elevates “Hustlers” from an entertaining con job flick to something noteworthy is that the racket isn’t inherent to the story Scafaria wants to tell. Many filmmakers will say their film tackles female empowerment, but few do the legwork to make an integral and authentic part of the story. Scafaria accomplishes that while making the friendship between Destiny and Romana the centerpiece of the film.

Gregory Ellwood – The Playlist

Flashy, fleshy and all-around impossible to ignore, “Hustlers” amounts to nothing less than a cultural moment, inspired by an outrageous New York Magazine profile (which serves as the sturdy six-inch stilettos on which the movie stands) adapted by writer-director Lorene Scafaria at her most Scorsese, and starring Jennifer Lopez like you’re never seen her before.

Peter Debruge – Variety

Hustlers delivers on its hype while consistently doing the unexpected. Scafaria, whose last pic was the 2016 Susan Sarandon vehicle The Meddler, excels at immersing the audience in the world of sex work in clubs, quietly disabusing us scene by scene of any stereotypes about who these women are. Part workplace dramedy, part revenge fantasy, the film weaves together a series of satisfying, organic-feeling turns

Beandrea July – The Hollywood Reporter

There are so many immediate pleasures and vicarious thrills to be had in Hustlers, a giddy, gaudy blast of a movie, that it’s easy to forget the intricate framework which houses it. Through writer-director Lorene Scafaria, whose Susan Sarandon vehicle The Meddler was a warm surprise at Toronto in 2015, a world traditionally seen through leering male eyes is now blessed with a canny, incisive female lens. Even when films have focused on strippers as something other than window dressing, they’ve still been written and directed by men and have smoothed over rougher edges, turning them all into titillating one-note archetypes. Instead, Scafaria views the strip club like any other workplace, filled with internal politics and an ever-changing hierarchy of power. It can be intimidating for sure, but there’s also a genuine camaraderie between a group of women who realise that combining their talents makes them that much more powerful.

Benjamin Lee – Guardian

But breaking the rules has never seemed so fun or so necessary.

Mara Reinstein – US Weekly

The room it leaves for that humanity — and the draw of Lopez’s magnetic presence — gives the movie more than legs; beneath all the chinchilla and body glitter, there’s a smart, beating heart.

Leah Greenbalt – Entertainment Weekly

Hustlers is crowdpleaser to its core. It never gets too nasty, though in the few instances it does, it shows a glimmer of the sharp, acidic movie that the real-life story portends. But as a campy female-empowerment comedy anchored by a scene-stealing Lopez, it’s still a good time.

Hoai Tran-Bui – Slashfilm

Based on Jessica Pressler’s New York Magazine article, “The Hustlers at Scores,” the picture’s rapturous energy crackles, sparkles, and dazzles. Scorsese in stilettos, GOODFELLAS slathered in frosty lip gloss and body glitter, this is a must-see Girl’s Night Out movie.

Courtney Howard – Fresh Fiction

Perhaps it was a bad sign that the cast of “Hustlers” was paraded out before the film and not invited back onstage afterward for a Q&A — rather, they took bows from a balcony where they were all seated together, looking spectacular, of course. There’s a lot to be said, this year, about giving space to majority-female casts, and more female directors, and to the undoing of the strip-club cliche in film. I just wish the first real salvo had hit its mark with a little more zing.

Sara Stewart – New York Post

With “Hustlers” being ostensibly the “Avengers” and "Star Wars" of stripper movies, Scafaria juggles a large cast well and still keeps the momentum humming along. It’s a big shift from Scafaria’s last project, underrated heartwarmer “The Meddler,” yet she balances the joyous fun with the larger moral questions at play. Even though the men (with a few exceptions) are mostly one-dimensional creeps, the women wrestle with the consequences of what they’re doing, with some feeling guilty and others sticking it to The Man, collectively speaking.

Brian Tuitt – Usa Weekly