Bradley Cooper, left, and Christian Bale in American Hustle (Francois Duhamel/Columbia Pictures)

Something is missing here, but what? This has all the ingredients of what should be (and maybe, is) a new classic con artist movie. Set in the 1970’s, a kinda sleazy dry cleaner-mogul-cum-“art” dealer, Irving Rosenthal, meets a highly attractive woman, Sidney, at a Long Island party. (Christian Bale, once again fluctuates in weight tremendously, but for once into the “heavy” column.) But is Sidney (Amy Adams) really Sidney? Why yes, she is, but she’s also Edith, a British high-society woman with an impeccable accent and an allure that drives Irving crazy in “love,” as he calls it.

Forming a partnership, they pull small cons on folks who Irving has already been dealing with, small-timers looking for a quick loan (five grand for a promised 50 that never comes), but they get caught in the act by F.B.I. agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), who wants to make a name for himself by using these grifters for a bigger sting: going after the mayor of Camden, New Jersey (Jeremy Renner), who’s bringing gambling to Atlantic City. Now the con gets bigger. But what about the thing Irving and Sidney have going? And what about Irving’s doting, not book smart but streetwise wife (Jennifer Lawrence)?

As is Russell’s want, things will get messy, especially when DiMaso gets way in over his head (thanks, cocaine!). It’s interesting to note that Russell actually has a plot in this film, but he could care less about it. (Bale said of an exchange on set that when he brought up, due to the heavy improvisation, that something wouldn’t make sense later on, the director replied, “Christian, I hate plots. I am all about characters, that’s it.”) This is the key, I think, to what makes Russell such a captivating director, working a little in the way of an Altman—shooting from the hip, taking his cast into wild, uncharted territory (sometimes for great, like Three Kings and Silver Linings Playbook, sometimes not so great, I Heart Huckabees).

If there’s something missing in all of these crazy theatrics, and what kept me from really falling in love with the movie—and this only dawned on me after I left the screening—was that the consequences were really not that strong, even when the stakes were high, like the carrying out of the federal Abscam string operation, which ultimately involved bribery, congressmen, and the mob. (I would dare not say which legendary oh-s***-it’s-him actor pops up in an unbilled cameo in one of the film’s highlights.) But I always felt like these guys and gals would come out alright in the end (well, some of them anyway), and that because of all of the conning and double-crossing, it was like watching a series of magic tricks. You know at some point the rabbit will come out of the hat.

Yet this isn’t to say that American Hustle isn’t worth seeing. This is a drenched-in-the-’70’s movie that is great to see on a big screen, and it has a strong soundtrack (part of Russell’s genius, you won’t hear Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” the same way again). It’s one of those eccentric films where just the hairstyles make it a full-price viewing. They add to the theme, about people not being truthful to themselves while putting over an “act,” whether it’s Irving’s comb-over (which Sidney describes in narration as “complicated”) or DiMaso’s perm.

And Russell has cast it almost impeccably. Bale gets to have his most manic role since… Russell’s The Fighter, as a man with principles and an outlook that at first is a bit cynical—everyone’s conning everyone, a truth perhaps, but a bit obviously stated. But Irving has a lot of integrity underneath that Bale brings out with tremendous skill, especially when he has to do his BIG scenes with Lawrence in her supporting role. Cooper also goes to town, much as he did in Playbook. He looks and acts like he’s being directed by Sidney Lumet in one of his own New York City-set films. He’s a high-wire act of energy, and he’s very funny as a result of staying true to Richie’s bigness. Amy Adams is perhaps the one almost weak link, but she’s still adept at switching her personas (and her accent, which sometimes wavers, on purpose?).

Two extremes in performances, and the two I single out as the stand-outs among the top-shelf cast, are by Lawrence and Louis C. K. The former isn’t too much of a surprise. She’s almost TOO good at playing this blithely unaware yet brilliant ball-buster of a wife. Lawrence plays everything with her eyes, her hair, her accent that is sexy and chills you to the bone in the way that only bored Long Island housewives can do. She’s the Bette Davis of the film; hard to look away from, totally vibrant, the one you miss when she’s not on screen.

Louis C. K. was a real surprise (he only appears for a snippet in the trailer), as I haven’t seen him do anything this significant in a film. He previously appeared in a small role in Blue Jasmine, but it was a fairly simple character, not unlike on his FX masterpiece Louie. Here he plays Richie’s beleaguered F.B.I. boss, a straight-forward guy who sees the rabid absurdity in everything that DiMaso asks for. He is almost the stand-in for audience, in a way, though some may end up more sympathetic to Cooper’s almost bipolar performance. For me, he did a lot with his character, a simple pencil-pusher boss, the one guy to think “You know this is all NUTS, right?”