Movie review
May 9, 2019 · 94 min · PG-13
Woke Score
Lower is better
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The Hustle.
Woke representation / casting
Clear audience-visible gender swap of the two lead con-artist roles from men in the source material to women, with marketing and premise built around female leads; casting team includes a known diversity advocate, though the cast itself shows no strong racial emphasis.
Woke political dialogue
Occasional comedic lines frame the cons as women outsmarting and taking revenge on men who have wronged them, plus direct comments that women are better suited to the game because men underestimate them; delivery stays light and joke-focused rather than preachy.
Identity-driven story themes
Core premise and some character motivation center on female empowerment and “sisters in arms” teamwork against male marks, with the wager and partnership beats tied to gender dynamics, though the story remains a standard con comedy at heart.
Review
The Hustle is a 2019 comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson as two rival female con artists who meet on the French Riviera and compete to scam a naive young tech billionaire out of half a million dollars. It is a gender-swapped remake of the 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with an updated script that reframes the leads as women getting payback from men who have wronged them. The story features comedic dialogue about women being better suited to cons because men underestimate them, presented as light female empowerment alongside standard rivalry and partnership beats.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Mild suggestion that men have exploited women and underestimate female competence, used to justify the scams, but no broader attack on patriarchy, capitalism, or Western institutions beyond individual rich male targets.
Woke character or canon changes
Explicit gender swap of the two central con artists from the original Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with Jac Schaeffer’s updated script deliberately reframing the leads and their motivations around female payback and empowerment.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Reviews and online comments criticize the gender-swapped remake as lazy pandering or forced feminism, with some treating the “women better at cons” premise and revenge-on-men angle as unnecessary identity-driven changes, though much of the negativity focuses on humor failure.
Creator track record context
Lead writer Jac Schaeffer has a clear pattern of representation-first work in prior projects; Rebel Wilson has pushed authentic LGBTQ+ casting in another 2019 film and voiced liberal positions, while the director and original writers show only mild or no activist signals.
Production
