Hustlers (2019) is a triumph!

HUSTLERS' entire mission statement is right there in its first few frames. “This is a story about control,” intones Janet Jackson, as fledgling stripper Destiny (Constance Wu) examines herself nervously in a dressing-room mirror, adjusting her bra straps and applying a wet pink lip gloss. “My control,” continues Jackson. “Control of what I say, control of what I do. And this time I’m gonna do it my way.” Jackson’s 1986 hit keeps playing as the camera follows Destiny from behind as she hits the strip-club stage for the first time, her face briefly lighting up as she gently spins around the pole to cheers and applause.

When Destiny steps offstage, flushed and happy, a drunk Wall Street bro beckons her to his table, and her fleeting spell of confidence and Jackson’s song halt simultaneously. “Hey, Lucy Liu,” he yells. “Come here. This is my boy Danny. Can you show him a good time?” The camera cuts to a dead-eyed Destiny rapidly humping an old man in a private room.


Writer -director  Lorene Scafaria says that Jackson’s “Control” was so essential to the opening scene that she’s not sure what she would’ve done had Jackson said no to licensing the song. “I said out of the gate, ‘If we don’t get this, I don’t know what this movie is.


According to music supervisor Jason Markey, the licensing for “Control” came down to the wire. When I spoke to him a few weeks before the film’s premiere, he told me he was “sweating, to be honest.” Though Universal, who owns Jackson’s masters, had given the film the go-ahead to use the song, they told Markey they couldn’t get ahold of Jackson while she was on tour to get the final approvals. “I said, ‘There’s no backing out. This is in the movie. We can’t take it out at this point, so we need this approved,’” says Markey. “I always have anxiety, but this was beyond anxiety. I doubled the Xanax.”

It wasn’t until Markey and his team sent actual footage of the opening scene to Jackson that she finally gave her blessing. “After she saw the clip, she loved it,” he says with palpable relief. “It’s like giving birth. I was walking in circles all day long, pacing, anxiety, bad dreams, you name it. Let’s just say we pulled off a miracle, okay?

But most of the music was locked down, at least in Scafaria’s mind, all the way back in 2016, when she first drafted the script. “I always knew I wanted to bookend the movie with Janet,” she says. While Jackson’s “Control” opens the film, the softer “Miss You Much” closes it, playing over a bittersweet montage of Ramona and Destiny’s friendship. “She captures a sound and is an icon — larger than Ramona’s iconography, even,” adds Scafaria. “So I like the idea that it begins and ends with Janet.

Just got banned in Malysia.

LOl: soon to follow probably: saudi- Arabia, Egypt, Russia, China.

Cant believe there are so many countries in the world that think we are still stuck in the Dark ages! 

Glad to see this outgrossing PG rubuish like Dora the the Explora.