The Hustle (2019)

Directed by Chris Addison. Starring Rebel Wilson, Anne Hathaway, Alex Sharp, Ingrid Oliver, Dean Norris, Nicholas Woodeson, Timothy Simon. (PG-13)

Atrocious remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (itself a remake of Bedtime Story) flips the gender of the leads…and that’s about it. Wilson (brash) and Hathaway (sophisticated) are rival con artists in the same small town on the French Riviera, and there isn’t room enough for the both of them. Wilson engages in a lot of tiresome pratfalls and indecency, Hathaway trots out a bad accent and appears obstructed trying to milk lazy drollery out of her uptight demeanor; they’re not good individually, and they’re even worse paired up—every scene they’re in together feels like it was the first time the actors met each other on set and they’re working off of different scripts. Several Scoundrels scenes are directly repeated here, with only minor changes (e.g., pretending to be blind instead of a paraplegic); the comparisons are wretchedly unfavorable. Sharp, as a tech billionaire the ladies are trying to grift, is also a complete dud. The biggest hustle, it seems, is on any audience expecting to have a good time.

25/100