Hustle
Adam Sandler's Netflix basketball pic is easily at least a double-double.
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I’ve always liked Adam Sandler. He was certainly a staple of my adolescence. I couldn’t go to a sleepover or get-together without “Billy Madison” or “Happy Gilmore” playing on a cathode-ray tube television somewhere in the background. But I haven’t dug a lot of his comedic output over the last 20 years or so. Where my endearment for Sandler remains is in his stints doing dramatic acting. The dude is legit great in stuff such as “Punch-Drunk Love,” “Reign Over Me,” “Funny People,” “The Meyerowitz Stories” and “Uncut Gems.” “Hustle” (now streaming on Netflix) is yet another jewel in Sandler’s dramatic crown.
Sandler stars as Stanley Sugarman, a basketball scout for the Philadelphia 76ers who specializes in recruiting foreign players. Stanley, weary from time spent abroad away from his wife Teresa (Queen Latifah, doing a lot with a little) and daughter Alex (Jordan Hull), has finally been offered an assistant coaching position by his mentor 76ers owner Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall, a welcome presence in a limited role).
Immediately after Stanley’s offered the job, Rex passes away. Stanley must now answer to Rex’s children Vince (Ben Foster, one of my favorite character actors ratcheting the dickhead energy up to 11) and Kat (“Saturday Night Live” vet Heidi Gardner). He’s got an adversary in the former and an ally in the latter. Vince promptly demotes Stanley and sends him back out on the hunt for talent.
While in Spain, Stanley spots unknown hoops phenom Bo Cruz (Utah Jazz power forward Juancho Hernangómez), a construction worker who’s hustling streetball games to kick up some extra scratch in support of his mother Paola (María Botto) and daughter Lucia (Ainhoa Pillet). After a miscommunication stemming from a language barrier, Stanley talks the reluctant Bo into returning to America with him and taking his shot at the NBA.
Neither Vince nor the 76ers have interest in Bo, so Stanley’s on the hook for his player’s lodging and training. Any opportunities Bo gets come largely from Stanley hustling and calling in favors from friends such as Leon (former NBA player and current TNT sportscaster Kenny Smith), Stanley’s college teammate-turned-powerful sports agent. Somewhere along the way Bo makes an enemy out of hotshot prospect Kermit Wilts (Hernangómez’s former Minnesota Timberwolves teammate Anthony Edwards, a charismatic foil). It’s up to Stanley to help keep the generally good-natured Bo’s temper in check and assist the young man in seeing his own worth.
“Hustle” is directed by documentarian-turned-narrative filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar (“In a Dream,” “Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart,” “We the Animals”) and co-written by “A Star Is Born” (2018) co-writer Will Fetters and first-time feature scribe Taylor Materne. It doesn’t reinvent the sports movie wheel – there are training montages for days – but what it does … it does extremely well.
The keys to “Hustle” succeeding are the performances of Sandler and Hernangómez and the chemistry these men share. And in this regard the movie is a resounding triumph. Sandler’s Stanley is immensely likable and to me at least hugely relatable. (Go figure, I connect to a slobby, bearded cat with a fast food addiction and a foul mouth.) Hernangómez isn’t as dramatically dynamic as Ray Allen was in Spike Lee’s “He Got Game” nor as comedically competent as LeBron James was in Judd Apatow’s “Trainwreck” (James produced “Hustle” and is namechecked somewhat grossly in the script.), but he’s more than adept enough at each aspect to shine.
Sandler’s Stanley and Hernangómez’s Bo are easy to root for – so is “Hustle” despite being an almost two-hour long commercial for the NBA … albeit an exceedingly entertaining and well-made one. Speaking of the NBA – I have the Celtics in six, but am hopeful the Warriors can still turn things around.