Andrew Lapin at The Dissolve:
The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook were David O. Russell films hiding inside Hollywood ones. American Hustle is the opposite. It’s so gauzy and extravagant that every outsized, Russell-lite character cancels out another one. What’s left is a political convention: a snazzy pageant with big flashbulbs that has little to do with the actual candidates. There is no emotional truth here, merely the sweet stench of the con.