Hustlers

Day after day, Destiny ( Constance Wu ) strips naked in front of a horde of howling men and puts up with humiliation just to make ends meet. It’s not easy. Although her strip club’s customers are wealthy Wall Street bankers, she has little left over for herself. Things change a bit when she meets Ramona ( Jennifer Lopez ), an experienced and successful colleague who takes her under her wing. But with the financial crisis, everything is over, there is simply no audience anymore. But the two don’t let that discourage them. Instead, they hatch a plan to fleece the rich businessmen themselves a little…

Hustlers is one of those movies that comes out of nowhere. Not only is the critical acclaim high, some even dream of an Oscar nomination for Jennifer Lopez. The film even became a box-office hit, grossing $150 million to date on a manageable budget of just $20 million. The success is understandable, however. At a time when Wall Street bankers are, to many, evil personified, it’s kind of nice to see them getting ripped off. The fact that a group of women, led by a Latina and an Asian, also succeeds in doing this brings into play the component of how the oppressed defend themselves against their oppressors.

The story is as strange as it is true: “Hustlers” tells how a group of strippers rob wealthy Wall Street bankers. It starts as a soothing, funny Guilty Pleasure hat, but it’s also a gripping portrait of both desperate women and a society that’s increasingly falling apart.

• Hustlers