i think there are two ways of viewing this film. the first way is to enjoy it at face value - a saucy romp through the seedy underbelly of late-stage capitalism. i think we can all agree that jlo is phenomenal here, hands down her best acting work to date and fuuuuck damn she's haaawt! she commands the screen with magnetic, artful dodger charm as the matriarchal figure of the moves crew. all the cast seem to be having a great time and it's hard not to have a great time yourself and be carried away by the glitzy if sleazy glamour of it all. that shot of jlo smoking a cigarette in a fur coat on the roof of the strip club *chef's kiss* bellissima! however, on the other hand, read a little deeper into it and everything feels a little... safe? the film delivered exactly what the trailer promised - the exploited exploiting their exploiters with style and panache (which i'm not mad about) but i feel like they could have pushed the envelope a bit more with the material. given the skeevy nature of the antics taking place in the film (drugging, robbing and sometimes injuring men), there's definitely an air of sanitised storytelling going on. this may or may not be due to the fact that destiny is telling the story and she's choosing to leave out the most unsavoury parts but i definitely felt like there must have been some studio pushback along the lines of "yes we want the strippers to be trashy but not so trashy that they're no longer #relatable for our core demo of drunk gal pals on a girly night out." and when it comes to style, as fellow reviewer the movie waffler puts it; "bob fosse and martin scorsese have a lot to answer for. american filmmakers now seem incapable of telling a true crime story without aping the templates established in fosse's star 80 and scorsese's goodfellas. lorene scafaria's hustlers ticks all the boxes you expect it might. fake talking head interviews? check. extended tracking shots through nightclubs? check. it's a wonderful life style freeze frames? check. voiceover narration delivered over slo-mo sequences? check. top 40 soundtrack? check." that being said, i was mostly on board with these style choices - they worked. i just wish the final product had a bit more grit and they could have found a better wig for constance wu.