380. The Hustler (1961)

Running Time: 134 minutes
Directed By: Robert Rossen
Written By: Sidney Carroll, Robert Rossen, from novel by Walter Tevis
Main Cast: Paul Newman, George C. Scott, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, Myron McCormick

NEWMANIA!: PART I

I know I promised this review yesterday, but I didn't get around to watching "The Hustler" until last night and at the late hour, I decided to just hold off on writing this review until this morning. My initial and succinct thoughts on "The Hustler" were big time disappointment.

Fast Eddie Felson (Newman) is a pool shark. Almost immediately upon the films opening, Eddie is making his way into town and into Ames Pool Hall, the pool hall that the legendary (and unbeatable) Minnesota Fats (Gleason) calls his home hall. Eddie practices all day and come 8 o'clock in the evening, Fats arrives and is met with a challenge from Eddie. Fats, never backing down from a "young punk" who things they can shoot stick better than him, accepts and the game is underway. Prior to Fats' arrival, Eddie had made a declaration that he'd walk out of Ames that night $10,000 richer. After some vigorous play, Eddie finds himself up $18,000, but states that the game isn't over until Fats says it's over. Fats steps into the john, cleans himself up and makes his way back to the table and to make a long story short, wins back everything out of Eddie's pocket, save $200. From there, Eddie spirit seems to be broken and while dining in a bus station coffee shop, he meets Sarah (Laurie), another seemingly broken spirit, who washes her sorrows away in a bottle. The two hole up together in Sarah's little, crummy apartment, but Eddie makes it clear that he's not in love - Sarah makes it clear that she is. To round out the plot summary, enter Bert Gordon (Scott), a mysterious fellow who we first see at the legendary pool match between Fats and Eddie and who later runs into Eddie and offers to be somewhat of a coach to him, helping him build character to go along with his incredible talent and maybe one day, beat the "Fat Man".

SPOILER ALERT!

So why disappointment? I was all ready to hand a '10' on this movie and shower it with praise. I was almost convinced that this was a film that couldn't miss. You had a movie about pool hustlers (sounds interesting and original) and you had a marvelous cast, where could they go wrong? I'll tell you. But let me preface all of this by saying that "The Hustler" will probably still get a decent enough rating, I'm just going to focus on more of the bad, than the good.

In my opinion, this film blows it's wad early. They give us the best scene first and it nearly ruins the rest of the film. Eddie is supposed to be this master pool player right, so his ultimate goal, as a pool hustler is to play and beat the legendary Minnesota Fats. We get about a five minute little opening scene of Eddie hustling pool from some townspeople, in some out of the way town and with that we're supposed to be ready for the match-up to end all match-ups between Eddie and Fats? I could've used a little more prepping myself. Show me some more of Eddie and Charlie out on the road, hustling all the hustlers and raking in the dough. No, instead at about the five or ten minute mark, we're already ready for the big showdown between Fats and Eddie. It's a fantastic scene, don't get me wrong. But Eddie gets beat and then guess what? We're, for the most part, done playing pool for a while.

Instead, the movie switches gears and is presented as a love story, between Eddie and Sarah. And that's just your basic two drifters with nowhere to go, pairing up and making a go at it together. Piper Laurie is great and I guess the love story angle isn't bad, but the whole time I'm thinking, "When are we gonna' shoot some more stick?" We see him hustle a couple of games here and there, but we only usually get a quick version and we never see another complete and great scene like that opening scene, of Eddie playing pool. Then George C. Scott comes in and he was fantastic, such an intimidating actor for me to watch. When I see Scott, I think "OH shit, business just picked up!" I love him (but hate "Patton", imagine that), but who in the hell was he supposed to be and did we really need his character. I mean, the guy was fantastic as Bert Gordon, but I really don't think we needed him. He just kind of seemed to be there and he had lines and they made a nice little sub-plot with him and Eddie, but a lot of it was nonsensical to me. Again, I just wanted to get back to watching Eddie play pool and seeing the rematch between him and Fats, because there had to be a rematch right? And it had to be bigger, better and badder than the original right?

Well, I'm right on the first point, there was a rematch, but it was short and rushed and wasn't nearly as exciting as the opening scene. Eddie beats Fats in record time and collects a big pile of dollars and heads out the door. THAT'S IT!!!??? That's all you're giving me?! How did Eddie beat this "legendary" pool shark, we barely saw the guy play pool. Was he really that good? Well I guess I'll have to take the film's word for it, I mean they said he was good, so I guess he's good, right? Dammit, don't just TELL me that this guy's a good pool player, SHOW ME!!!

"The Hustler" is good. It has good acting, it has an outstanding opening scene, but beware: That opening scene killed the movie for me. It was so good, that I expected more greatness, but failed to realize that the GREATNESS was really over and all that was left was goodness. I can't believe that the film never gave a payoff to that first match. We SHOULD have gotten a bigger and better match, or Eddie should have gotten beat fast in the beginning and we should have worked our way to that 25 hour, grueling fantastic pool match - that fantastic opening scene should have been scooted to the end, with a different outcome. I'm done.

RATING: 6.5/10 Maybe I'm being too hard, but I was expecting something different from this movie. I'll keep thinking about it and we'll talk about it come RECAP time. Next up for Newman: Hud.

MOVIES WATCHED: 325
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 676

August 17, 2011 11:39am