Daily Times

A Best Actress Oscar nomination for Jennifer Lopez? You better believe it. Her see-it-to-believe-it performance in Hustlers is that dazzling, that deep, that electrifying. At the Toronto Film Festival, where art films get the most attention, this glitzy true-crime knockout about New York strippers who take their drooling Wall Street clients to the cleaners, has been the talk of the town in advance of the movie’s national release this week. And for good reason. Hustlers promises and delivers a party-hard, wild ride. No one expected insights that pull you up short. Writer-director Lorene Scafaria hits a career peak for scrappily adapting a 2015 New York magazine article by Jessica Pressler. The writer profiled a group of exotic dancers at Scores about facing criminal charges for scamming the men who treated them as objects for sale. Hustlers doesn’t pussyfoot about what goes on in those “champagne rooms” off stage.