Tim M
Suckering the audience in with tension and a driven Paul Newman, The Hustler finds its groove in a slick mood and layered themes on the nature of winning.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/21/24
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acsdoug D
I really like the black and white dramas from the 50s and 60s, so I don't know why it took me so long to get around to watching this one. I liked it well enough, although I would have preferred more hustling and pool and less of the love story.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
07/17/23
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Audience Member
Probably the greatest depiction of pool in a movie, not only because of its accuracy, but because it shifts towards a story so specific it opens the gates to treasures of drama. The performances are very convincing, and that includes the acting, the dialogue, the pool games in action, and everything else throughout. The Hustler was considered revolutionary in its time, but it still can be considered so today. It's a must-watch.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/29/23
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Mike W
The Hustler isn't just one of, if not the single, greatest sports movies of all-time. It's just one of the great films ever made. Everything about this film is almost pitch perfect, from it's cinematography, it's tone, the direction, writing, acting, music, etc. Robert Rossen has made a certified classic and a movie that is must-watch for any cinephile at least once a year.
The best part of this film, by far, are the performances. In a film that uses limited sets and usually filmed in dark and closed pool halls, it's up to the actors to be at the top of their game, and the main quartet are certainly that. Paul Newman gives a career best performance as "Fast" Eddie Felson, making the brash and headstrong pool shark a sympathetic character who goes through the entire gamut of emotions by the end of the film and has you questioning whether the end justifies the means.
Piper Laurie as well, as Newman's counterpart and the one who quietly shapes everything about Eddie, is phenomenal as the equally flawed but equally sympathetic Sarah. She actually ends up with the most heart-wrenching and most important moments in the film, with her tender care for Eddie as he recovers from his injuries and her desperation and end thanks to a sleazy manager really hits hard.
Of course, you have to focus as well on possibly the most underrated antagonist in film over the past 75 years in George C. Scott's Bert Gordon. There is nothing redeeming about Bert Gordon, nothing that makes a view think that maybe he's right in the end. He's greedy, slimy, manipulative, and only out for his own pocketbook. That point is never more clear than the sequence with Findlay (Murray Hamilton) in which he is able to anger Eddie enough to come back and win a substantial of money and then accosts Sarah and causes her demise. The slow diatribe that Eddie goes on throughout the climactic pool sequence going after Bert is cathartic not just for Eddie but the viewers as well. It's a well-written villain and Scott is perfectly sleazy for the role. If it wasn't for Patton, I'd say it was his best work.
Finally with casting, we get to the mere presence that is Jackie Gleason. He's barely in the film, bookending the feature, but whenever he's on screen you can't look away. The big man dominates his screentime and is believable as the legendary shark Minnesota Fats. When he say "pay up" after being thoroughly defeated by Eddie, you feel for him, almost like he was just a slight speedbump for Eddie to drive over and get to his real target at this point, Bert.
Technically, it's incredibly vivid to watch and the way the cinematographer and Robert Rossen use lighting and shade is immaculate. The closeups of Newman alone in the pool halls are worth the watch, but the standout sequence is the final scene of Sarah. You see her broken and at her end through a mirror. Scrawling "Perverted, Twisted, Crippled" in lipstick shows how dark the path Bert has led Eddie on and the next shot of Eddie discovering her and Bert claiming ignorance is profound.
In the end, the Hustler is an incredible film experience and one that we can all learn from about the mentality of winning and whether we would take the steps to get to the point that we think we desire to reach. In the end, Paul Newman and "Fast" Eddie Felson is all of us. What good is reaching the mountaintop if all we did is lose ourselves and everything we love in the process?
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
03/04/24
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Shioka O
Solid performance by Newman.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
10/13/22
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Richard F
Great art perhaps, but It became so depressing I quit watching. If you like this kind of gut wrenching drama, go for it!!! My friend wanted to watch it and I couldn't sit through such tragic lives all going down hill.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
10/09/22
Full Review
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