[‘HUSTLE’ Review]: Adam Sandler Finds Unknown Gem In Basketball Drama

Travis Leamons // Film Critic

Rated R, 117 minutes.
Director: Jeremiah Zagar
Cast: Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangomez, Ben Foster, Kenny Smith, Jordan Hull, and Robert Duvall

A dialed-in Adam Sandler is a rarity. The ability to turn off making people laugh all the time and deliver a seriocomic performance is as well. He did career-best work with the Safdie brothers starring in UNCUT GEMS as Howard Ratner, a jeweler in New York’s famed diamond district, who was also a philanderer, a gambling addict, and a crook, to name a few. Driven by obsession and impulse ultimately leads to his undoing. That level of obsessiveness, while turned down several clicks, is what feeds his character, Stanley Sugerman, in HUSTLE, Netflix’s basketball underdog story.

Stanley dreams of being an NBA coach, but there aren’t many fast-break opportunities to get there. As a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team, he has spent many years on the road traveling from country to country, evaluating talent. Team owner, Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall), respects Stanley and gives him an assistant coaching job for his years of hard work. But the promotion is short-lived as Rex passes, leaving his son, Vince (Ben Foster), to take control and quickly demote Stanley back to evaluating prospective draft picks. Vince doesn’t particularly like Stanley or understand what his father saw in him in the first place.

On assignment in Spain for one player, Stanley spots Bo (Juancho Hernangomez) playing in a pick-up game of street ball wearing construction boots. Knowing he’s found a basketball unicorn – a generational talent that, while unseasoned, can compete on the national stage – Stanley pursues Bo, believing him to be the missing piece for the Sixers and his ticket to get off the road for good and start coaching. But with past run-ins with police in Spain, the Sixers see Bo as less of a needle in a haystack and more of a public relations nightmare. So now it is up to Stanley to show what true hustle is all about and prove the NBA skeptics wrong.

HUSTLE follows the underdog sports story blueprint to the letter. We have the fish out of water theme of a foreigner coming to America and encountering those who understand the game better than him. Self-doubt conflicts about whether or not our unknown talent can rise above underdog status and play with the big boys. Even with the standard motifs, the story elevates above its cliched underpinnings, like Dr. J going up for a slam dunk.

Sandler incorporates a bit of his comedic shtick as levity when we can see his mounting frustrations with Sixers management. His emotional support comes from his wife, Teresa (Queen Latifah), and Leon (former NBA champion and “NBA on TNT” co-host Kenny Smith), a sports agent who trusts Stanley’s gut instincts and basketball IQ better than the franchise signing his paychecks.

And it wouldn’t be a sports movie without a training montage, right? They are a staple and director Jeremiah Zagar (WE ARE ANIMALS) gives us one of the best not seen since 2015’s CREED. Must be a Philly thing.

With no true surprises in terms of telling the story, where HUSTLE earns its spot in the starting line-up is with heart and respecting the journey to improve. In a strange way, I was reminded of Damien Chazelle’s LA LA LAND in that our two protagonists get what they both want, only the stars are aligned differently. This deflation is only a momentary blip as to what remains an inclusive sports movie that appeals to audiences, not necessarily to the game of basketball. The script allows our two primary characters to play one-on-one or function as a unit without running the risk of falling out of bounds or being stricken with a technical foul on account of blatant sentimentality.

HUSTLE offers fresh energy to the basketball movie subgenre, delivering a nice swish instead of an airball.

Grade: B+