1961 Directed by Robert Rossen
Fast Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats to a high-stakes match.
Suurkaupungin hait, Lo Spaccone, Hajen, Играчът на билярд, Robert Rossen's The Hustler, بیلیارد باز, El buscavidas, L'arnaqueur, Desafio à Corrupção, El audaz, 허슬러, Haie der Großstadt
Its Paul Newman guys, its Paul newman., do you need a longer review, I mean come on, its Paul Newman.
Do you like to gamble, Eddie? Gamble money on pool games?
-Minnesota Fats
An incredible film about a self-defeating man that is already the "best" as far as talent is concerned, but he's still a loser because he's a deeply flawed human being with no character. He's all ego and doesn't understand what winning is if it doesn't involve the humiliation of his opponent. It's that fact that leaves him vulnerable to smarter opponents and a pathetic mess when they are done with him.
Fast Eddie Felson is that man, one of the truly great American film characters and he is portrayed by Paul Newman in one of THE great American performances. This is now my earliest Newman film and…
Robert Rossen was a director with very short resume who struck early success with All the Kings Men, but waited twelve long years to repeat that success. That film was The Hustler, starring Paul Newman as billiard beast ‘Fast’ Eddie Felson.
The film follows the hotheaded Felson as he frequently gets in his own way trying to find some level of prosperity utilizing his talents. His hubris and machismo lead him to challenge the great pool player Minnesota Fats, played by a confident and charming Jackie Gleason, to a game of high stakes pool. This does not end well for Felson, and as he finds bottom in both his profession and his codependent relationship (Piper Laurie), Fast Eddie begins the…
In an escalation of tension, Eddie, a young and arrogant pool champion, engages with the unbeatable Minnesota Fats in a competition where the stakes go far beyond the professional reputation of both: the real theme around which The Hustler revolves, in fact, is the struggle that each man must face in order to fulfill himself as a person. Shot flawlessly by Robert Rossen, in a dazzling black and white that well photographs the atmosphere full of smoke and alcohol of the pool rooms, the film hides among the billiard tables a very bitter existential parable, in which lives perpetually poised between obsession and precariousness, hope and disillusionment, greed and loneliness, symbolize the dark side of the American dream. Magnificently supported…
This is a cruel movie. Piper Laurie is a gaping wound on one bum leg, and Paul Newman is pride run amok... 18K down the drain and nary a lesson learned. George C. Scott is the heart of this film, though, and it’s black, and it’s rotten. He takes Piper Laurie to pieces, and it’s not a fair fight.
Bert Gordon is the kind of villain that ruins real lives, but maybe he’s what Fast Eddie needed.
#jackiegleasonsgotmadswagger
Paul Newman was one of the coolest men to ever walk this earth. He had so much class, charisma and charm.
spent half the time thinking about how much money i could have won if only i put 100 bucks on phil mickelson winning the pga championship... so whatever moral i was supposed to take away from this was lost on me. money mindset over everything, baby.
Paul Newman gives what is arguably the first iconic performance of his career as the disenchanted wanderer and pool hustler Eddie Felson in this superlatively directed and co-written Robert Rossen film. Piper Laurie is similarly extraordinary as the wayward and sensitive alcoholic Sarah Packard who comes to meet Felson at a bar, and jointly they piece together a connection.
Cinematographer Eugen Shuftan won an Oscar for his accomplishments for shooting in gloomy pool halls with a vividly palpable atmosphere, and all the principal characters include stormy emotional temperaments to varying magnitudes. The strength of the constitution from Newman's portrayal of Felson is counterpointed beautifully by Laurie's delicate characterisation of Packard and the two shattered people are equally perfect for one…
67/100
Pretty confident now that I heretically prefer The Color of Money, though I need to revisit that as well. [OCT 2020: I did and I do.] Difference is in the way the respective films treat their sole female character—while Piper Laurie's Sarah initially seems like a tough cookie, capable of seeing through Fast Eddie's bullshit, she winds up as little more than a sacrificial lame lamb. Plus, telling the story from management's perspective rather than talent's is inherently more interesting (especially in a case where management used to be talent). Plus, Scorsese as opposed to Rossen. Still, the actual pool stuff here is all terrific—try to imagine a contemporary film devoting half an hour of screen time to a single extended match—and the male actors, unencumbered by drippy pathos, tear it up. Must've been something at the time to see Gleason rein it in like that.
Probably the only film I’ve seen to date that manages to make pool look like the coolest game on the planet. It’s not a sport that you’d think would make for riveting cinematic material, but somehow Robert Rossen and his crew managed to pull it off. It certainly must have helped that Jackie Gleason was already a skilled pool player coming in to the project, and although Paul Newman had never played the game before (he’d supposedly never even held a pool cue), he put in the hours prior to the shoot to ensure that he was able to keep up the pace.
The finesse of the film’s numerous pool sequences is fairly indicative of the calibre of the storytelling…
