In its first few minutes, Lorene Scafaria's "Hustlers" sends a message. Yes, this is a movie about strippers. And yes, you'll see more of Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu than you probably ever imagined. Wu, as Destiny, opens the film by walking into her first night of work at a seemingly glamorous Manhattan club called Moves _ but by the end of her shift she's been propositioned, insulted and cheated by nearly every man she meets.
In other words, if you came to "Hustlers" for the cinematic equivalent of a lap dance _ something steamy, erotic and gratuitously sexy _ you've come to the wrong place.
What you'll get instead is a flashy, fast-moving, funny-sad story of two women who decide to exploit their exploiters and achieve what they've been told is the American dream. Based on a New York Magazine story by Jessica Pressler, "Hustlers" features a career-best performance by Lopez as Ramona, a woman with street-level business acumen, and an equally engaging turn from Wu ("Crazy Rich Asians") as a woman whose turnip-truck naivete quickly curdles. It's a terrific entry into the capitalism-run-amok genre defined by "Wall Street," "Boiler Room" and "The Wolf of Wall Street," only this time women are the anti-heroines of their own narrative.
