15 Most Overrated Movies Of The Decade (So Far)

12. American Hustle

David O. Russell tried to do Scorsese with his seventies crime thriller, but wound up falling way short. The end result looked great for sure, and saw some of Hollywood's finest deliver out-of-type performances, yet it feels incredibly hollow.

For a film that opens with the vague "Some of this actually happened," it's incredibly reverential, recreating late-seventies style with incredible accuracy. The problem is less that it does that (period feel is very important) and more that it seems to do that at the behest of actual substance. Shots of Christian Bale and Amy Adams embracing in a dry cleaners as fur coats run past them (again, it's set in the seventies) are clearly intended to be profoundly iconic, but it never goes beyond being two actors getting brushed by jackets.

At the end of the day, it's one of those films that thinks it's much smarter than it wants to be - a final twist is meant to cause Statue of Liberty shivers, but can't really do more than Ape Lincoln shrugs - which is never enjoyable, especially when a film is all about smart people.

There's an argument of meat on the original story's bones - ABSCAM isn't as deep a subject matter as the rise of a New York gangster, the fall of mobster ruled Vegas or the excesses of a vile banker - yet the issues come down to the director. At this point Russell was still riding the high of The Fighter, which led to many people overlooking the film's lack of depth.