ANNE HATHAWAY HAD 5 GOOD YEARS IN HER...THAT WAS A DECADE AGO..SHE IS UNBANKABLE AND ONLY PASSABLY LIKABLE.THIS LOOKS PRETTY BAD.GHOSTBUSTERS SHIT THE BED FOR SURE.OCEANS 8 WASNT THAT BAD.I ENJOYED IT.

DRS is one my all-time favourite movies, so I know I'll have difficulty just accepting this remake for what it is and not holding it to the original standard.

I don't hate remakes. Some do a fine job of standing on their own, crafting their own style while also doing justice to the original (Sabrina, Ocean's 11, A Perfect Murder); others, no so much (the ones you mentioned are splendid examples).

Seems this is tending towards the latter.

Well, finally got around to watching this movie to the end. I'd give it a 4/10 and that's probably being slightly generous. It mostly follows 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' only ending up being rather unfunny for pretty much all of the film. The original stuff they did add also ends up falling flat. Oh well, it's another one for the 'Who exactly did they make this movie for' pile. If you want a funny movie a.k.a. comedy....this isn't it.

I just found out that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is not the original; it is, in fact, a remake, of Bedtime Story (1964) starring David Niven, Marlon Brando and Shirley Jones!

How does DRS measure up to Bedtime Story? Dunno, haven't seen the original original yet. It's now on my watch list, stay tuned..

One thing is for certain - with TWO movies as source material, if The Hustle still fails to capture the charm and poise of the story, it's a double shame. I'll watch Bedtime Story first, then The Hustle, and see what's what.

EDIT: Okay, I watched Bedtime Story. It was okay, had a few moments that were indeed better than Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and a few that really sucked; for me, overall, DRS is still the best, especially as it added that delicious twist which nicely fleshed out out the three main characters much more fully.

I'm curious what The Hustle could possibly add, and how tastefully.

Executive summary

The Hustle is, in my opinion, bad. With all the available source material, what they added of value pales in comparison to all they missed, to the point where I can't see why they even bothered with it.

Bedtime Story/Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a sophisticated story. The Hustle was anything but. What it took from the original(s) are pieces that don't fit together. What it failed to capture were the nuances that made a subtle, smart joke work.

Examples

Here are a few examples, painful even to recall:

Example 1. On the train, when Penny tells Josephine she's heading for Beaumont-Sur-Mer, Josephine excuses herself to make a phone call. In DRS, we don't know what he said on the phone. We then see a beautiful woman get on the train, enter their berth, and mention she's going to Portofino. Benson decides to stay on the train. Jamieson gets off, meets his police insider, and the reveal is that the beautiful woman was a set up. And that's the joke.

In the Hustle, as soon as Josephine gets out of the berth, the camera focuses on her while we hear her say "We have a problem." Now, when the two fellows enter the berth, we're already aware that it's a set up. Sure, it's funny, but it misses the craft, the subtlety.

Example 2. In DRS, Jamieson plays roulette to lose, so that he can do the "sell my royal stuff" charade and engage the mark. Once Benson shows up, Jamieson wins, repeatedly, at the table. He isn't trying to win, he's trying to lose, and the look on his face as higher piles of winning chips are pushed at him is understated, yet hilarious.

In The Hustle, Josephine's shtick is not that, and there's no device, no leverage, to be had from losing at roulette. So, when she wins, so what? So, they shoved that part into the movie, but failed to include the set up that makes the gag work.

Example 3. Benson gets some sympathetic sailors to help him ditch Jamieson. Later, it is revealed that Jamieson - ever the community-engaged sophisticate - is a volunteer Naval reserve. THAT's how he was able to talk his way out of a trip to South America. He walks Benson into a trap, and leaves him with the sailors who are now in league with Jamieson. Later, upon returning to retrieve Benson, we arrive to see him standing, laughing with the sailors and the women, leaning casually against the wall. After this, he requests super glue solvent, and collapses, indicating he was glued to the wall. That's funny.

In The Hustle, we're not sure what the three women in the bathroom were going to do to Josephine, nor how Josephine got out of that jam, and when she finally returns to retrieve Penny, the wall scene is hurried and utterly without the timing that makes the joke funny.

Neither Bedtime Story nor Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are perfect

Now, is DRS perfect? Nah, there are a few things that Bedtime Story did better than DRS (one fine example is the sequence of events on the train that made a little more sense than how it all went down in DRS). Bedtime Story is the original, lays down the story and the characters and does so clearly enough that a remake could be done that highlights most of what worked, dropped some things that didn't, and added splendidly to make a better story.

DRS raises the levels for both Caine's Jamieson and his degree of sophistication, charm, poise, and craft (the Felix of this odd couple); as well as Martin's Benson and his baser, low-ball Oscar in this odd couple (while I liked David Niven in Bedtime Story, I didn't really enjoy Brando except to say okay, I saw him act). And, not only the DRS raise the level for these two actors, it totally raised the level for (the late, great) Glenne Headly's Janet above Shirley Jones's Janet, adding the most delicious twist to the ending, essentially makes an entirely new movie that respectfully builds on its predecessor.

This review is not misogynistic

Before anyone goes off suggesting I didn't like this movie just because they were female leads, let me resolve that quickly by observing

• the way they changed The Hustle puts women below how DRS portrayed them - in the Hustle, both of these women are played by a man. In DRS, a woman played the two male leads, and the lead male character leads the audience to acknowledge her brilliance and does so selflessly, rather than how The Hustle leaves the wrong female character bitter, suggesting that even the most sophisticaed woman is neither smart enough nor big enough to lead by principle over emotion; while the character that did recognize the man who put on over on them did so due to emotion, which is hardly the enobled, selfless way that Jamieson did in DRS.

• I enjoy a good story with a female lead - action movies included - just as readily as I do movies with male leads - movies that come to mind include S.A.L.T., the discussion thread for which includes my arguing that the required suspension of belief for the stunts in S.A.L.T. are no more difficult than anything we've cheered while watching Arnie, Sly or Bruce do their thing across countless franchises and sequels; Columbiana and, of course, Dirty Rotten Soundrels!) And I'll take any of these and others similar movies over anything by, say, Steven Segal or Adam Sandler.

Could there be subconscious misogynistic misgivings in my review? Sure, it's still possible. But, in the meantime, check out my list Better on the Bechdel, where I highlight movies that, well, as the title implies, do well against the Bechdel test. Please feel free to suggest titles that you feel should be added to the list! (tweet me @DRDMovieMusings or email drdmoviemusings@gmail.com)

Was there anything redeeming about The Hustle?

Sure, I can suggest one thing...

Penny's original, low-ball schtick was showing up on blind dates and seeing men crestfallen that she wasn't the hottie they were expecting. It hurt that no one ever saw her as beautiful in the inside, because of how they responded to her outside. But, Thomas, he seemed to "see her", and that made her feel special, such that she got soft on the charade. I can appreciate that. As a device, that worked.

The problem is, to switch how the two female protagonists dealt with discovering they were both played vs. how it went down in DRS was rather ham-fisted, and seemed out of character for both leading ladies. In DRS, Jamieson was a sportsman to the end, gracious in defeat because there are rules to which he adheres, even when they don't suit him; that's why he could laugh and respect how Janet played them. Benson was upset because he wasn't sophisticated enough to see the poetry in the reversal. That was consistent with both their characters.

I kept watching because I know Anne Hathaway is better than this but this is really and truly, awful.