American Motormouths

American Hustle: written by David O. Russell and Eric Warren Singer; directed by David O. Russell; starring Christian Bale (Irving Rosenfeld), Bradley Cooper (Richie DiMaso), Amy Adams (Sydney Prosser), Jeremy Renner (Camden Mayor Carmine Polito), Jennifer Lawrence (Rosalyn Rosenfeld), Louis C.K. (Stoddard Thorsen) and Elisabeth Rohm (Dolly Polito) (2013): Writer-director David O. Russell has said on numerous occasions that plot bores him. Thankfully, the actors and the dialogue in his movies -- some of that dialogue improvised -- can make one forget that the proceedings are a bit shaggy at times. For whatever reason, he's also the one director who can get a great performance out of Bradley Cooper.

American Hustle, loosely based on the Abscam scandal of the 1970's, gives all of its actors something to do and, more importantly, something to say. The performances are all top-notch, especially an almost unrecognizable Christian Bale as an overweight con-man with his own code of ethics and Amy Adams as his partner in crime. The plot sags a bit in the middle under the weight of all those conversations, but regains its jauntiness as the end draws near. Someone should sign Russell and company up for a remake of The Front Page/His Girl Friday, stat. He's one of a few modern directors who could successfully replicate the rat-a-tat dialogue direction of Howard Hawks. Highly recommended.

High Anxiety: written by Mel Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy De Luca, and Barry Levinson; directed by Mel Brooks; starring Mel Brooks (Richard H. Thorndyke), Madeline Kahn (Victoria Brisbane), Cloris Leachman (Nurse Diesel), Harvey Korman (Dr. Charles Montague), Ron Carey (Brophy), Dick Van Patten (Dr. Wentworth), and Howard Morris (Professor Lilloman) (1977): Mel Brooks is all over the place figuratively and literally in this parody of the films of Alfred Hitchcock. He sings. He dances. He stars. He directs. He co-writes. It's probably no accident that Brooks' films became decreasingly popular as his ego moved him from supporting roles in his own films to lead roles -- this is his second turn as the lead, and the rot has begun to set in, lightly but inevitably.

Still, there are some killer sequences parodying both the specific and the general in Hitchcock's films, from some complicated camerawork under a glass coffee table to a ridiculous riff on Janet Leigh's driving problems in Psycho. And there are killer performances, none moreso than Cloris Leachman as a nurse/dominatrix with truly peculiar line-readings and physical mannerisms. Recommended.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: adapted by John Huston from the novel by B. Traven; starring Humphrey Bogart (Dobbs), Walter Huston (Howard), Tim Holt (Curtin), Bruce Bennett (Cody), and Robert Blake (Lottery Seller) (1948): One of the all-time great adventure films gives us Humphrey Bogart at his grimiest and Walter Huston at a chameleonic peak that earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Gold-hunting in Mexico in the 1920's leads Bogart, Huston, and Tim Holt up a mountain and then down into the depths of human behaviour.

Great lines, great acting, fine direction from Walter Huston's son John, and the crazed jig forever after known as the Walter Huston dance. And the badges line, often misquoted. And a wild, realistic barroom brawl. One of the first big-budget Hollywood movies to be filmed almost entirely on location. If there are essential movies, this is one of them. Highly recommended.

Dancing in the Dark

Silver Linings Playbook: adapted by David O. Russell from the novel by Matthew Quick; directed by David O. Russell; starring Bradley Cooper (Pat), Jennifer Lawrence (Tiffany), Robert de Niro (Pat Sr.), Jacki Weaver (Dolores), and Chris Tucker (Danny) (2012): While not the most realistic depiction of mental illness in movie history, Silver Linings Playbook does have its heart in the right place insofar as Bradley Cooper's character really does need to take his meds. Jennifer Lawrence, not so much. And ballroom dancing isn't presented as a cure for all forms of mental illness, though at times it seems awfully close.

Lawrence, who won the Best Actress Oscar for 2012 for her role in this movie, is very good. She's developed some sort of weird muscle control that gives her a mask-like face at times, the features softening at others. Is it acting or is it Botox? I don't know. But it works with the character, whose depression precedes the death of her husband, after whose death things fall completely apart.

Cooper is also excellent. He nails the delusional rhythms of mania, the boundless delusional energy. And he conveys the subsequent exhaustion nicely as well. He's a sharp actor with surprising depths. He sells certain aspects of his mental problems without recourse to exposition, and rings true throughout. Robert de Niro is anachronistically measured and controlled as Pat's occasionally delusional, OCD-afflicted father, and Jacki Weaver shines as Pat's long-suffering mother, who seems to be the only fully sane person in the movie.

The fairy-tale quality of Silver Linings Playbook probably irked a lot of people who deal with mental-health issues on a daily basis. And it really is a fairy tale, though thankfully one with a certain measure of permanent darkness. Most of the comedy flows from plausible scenarios -- I especially liked Pat repeatedly waking his parents up at 3 a.m. to rant about a novel he'd just read. And Pat's obsession with his estranged wife's high-school English course syllabus rings true as well, something that's funny from the outside but also a symptom of deep mental distress.

Ultimately, Silver Linings Playbook is a romantic comedy about severely screwed-up people, and if it's not truly realistic, it's still a more laudable portrayal of characters with mental-health problems than, say, the ludicrous A Beautiful Mind. Recommended.

Fighting American

The Fighter, written by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson and Keith Dorrington, directed by David O. Russell, starring Mark Wahlberg (Micky Ward), Christian Bale (Dicky Eklund), Amy Adams (Charlene Fleming) and Melissa Leo (Alice Ward) (2010): Micky Ward, a real boxer who fought in the Junior Welterweight and Welterweight categories in the 1980's and 1990's, starts off the movie as a mismanaged stepping-stone for younger up-and-coming boxers.

He's managed by his mother (Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Melissa Leo) and crack-and-meth-addled older half-brother Dicky (Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Christian Bale), the latter of which was once a contender but who is now, basically, a bum living off his reputation in Lowell, Massachusetts. Micky chafes at his mismanagement -- as the movie opens, he's about to get pummelled by a boxer 20 pounds heavier than him -- but remains passively bound to his family, despite management offers from high-profile boxing promoters.

Then along comes Charlene Fleming, a bartender who quickly falls for Micky and starts trying to get him to take command of his own life. It takes awhile (actually in real life a lot longer than it seems to in the movie), but Micky finally gets someone else to arrange boxing matches for him, and he starts winning again. But he still loves his incredibly loopy family. When a now-clean Dicky gets out of jail after serving time for assaulting a police officer, Micky seems to be stuck with deciding between girlfriend and family. Or has Dicky changed?

The film remains pretty true to its true-story roots, though it ends at a curious place -- just prior to the three fights with Arturo Gatti that would cement Micky's reputation as one of the toughest boxers to ever fight. Bale and Leo are solid in their award-winning roles, and Wahlberg and Adams are fine, too, in their less showy performances. David O. Russell's direction is also solid, though a framing narrative of characters speaking directly to the camera is underused and, frankly, not necessary. Recommended.