Hustle

Adam Sandler seduces the critics again in a formulaic but winning yarn set in the cutthroat world of basketball.

Juancho Hernangómez and Adam Sandler

Sports movies are innately formulaic. The art is in how to twist the run-up. However, sports movies starring Adam Sandler are no guarantee of critical success. Sandler played a golfer in Happy Gilmore (1996), a footballer in The Waterboy (1998) and a disgraced quarterback in Robert Aldrich’s headache-inducing The Longest Yard (2005). The latter was a remake of the violent Burt Reynolds comedy of the same name (1974), although Burt Reynolds’ Hustle (1975; also directed by Aldrich) didn’t have a sporting chance with the critics – it was about a cop and a prostitute. Sandler’s latest sports outing offers a different kind of hustle, being the story of a basketball scout who puts his neck on the line for an unknown Spanish hoopster.

Sandler is enjoying something of a critical renaissance (Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories, the Safdie brothers' Uncut Gems, the latter winning him some acting gongs), and he ups the ante here with one of his most endearing performances to date. He plays Stanley Sugerman, a sympathetic schmuck, family man and scout for the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers. He’s promoted to assistant coach by his long-time friend and owner of the 76ers, Rex Merrick (a 91-year-old Robert Duvall), so he can spend more quality time at home with his adoring wife Teresa (Queen Latifah) and adorable daughter Alex (Jordan Hull).

The opening montage sets the scene nicely as we see Stanley whisked around the world seeking out new talent, punctuated by toxic binges on chow from KFC, Pizza Hut and McD’s. He’s a gutbucket and will be the first to admit it (there are constant references to his girth). Then Rex dies and Stanley sees his new promotion go up in smoke. Rex’s son, Vin (a characteristically vulpine Ben Foster), tells him that he’s “valuable as a coach, but indispensable as a scout.” So off Stanley goes again, leaving behind the lean streets of Philadelphia for overseas potential.

What follows next, starting on a basketabll court in Mallorca, sets familiar wheels in motion as Stanley spots a force of raw talent during a nocturnal pick-up game. But first he must convince the promising amateur, Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez), that he, Stanley, is for real, and that the minimum salary for an NBA player is $900,000. The narrative hoops are then neatly set up and Sandler exudes a relaxed charisma, a cross between the actor’s own persona (his reassuring “OK” has become a comforting vocal tick) and a man whose professionl and private lives are on the brink.

The director is Jeremiah Zagar, who cut his filmmaking chops in documentaries and won a Sundance prize for his drama We the Animals (2018). Here, Zagar brings a loose-limbed energy to the proceedings, and injects a warmth into a story that nimbly bypasses sentimentality. And with its roster of real-life NBA alumni, it should appeal to fans of the game, while the on-court action is genuinely exciting stuff, even for non-believers. As a tale of underdogs in a cuthroat business, it certainly hits all the right buttons, and must invite begrudging approval from even the stoniest heart. It is rousing, gripping and moving entertainment, and should prove an education for the unenlightened. Above all, Adam Sandler makes us care. As he says, “obsession will beat talent every time.”

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangómez, Ben Foster, Kenny Smith, Anthony Edwards, Robert Duvall, Jordan Hall, Maria Botto, Ainhoa Pillet, Raul Castillo, Jaleel White, Heidi Gardner. 

Dir Jeremiah Zagar, Pro LeBron James, Maverick Carter, Joe Roth, Joseph Vecsey, Jeff Kirschenbaum, Zack Roth, Adam Sandler and Allen Covert, Screenplay Taylor Materne and Will Fetters, Ph Zak Mulligan, Pro Des Perry Andelin Blake, Ed Tom Costain, Brian Robinson and Keiko Deguchi, Music Dan Deacon, Costumes Johnetta Boone, Sound Russell Topal and Ruy García. 

Happy Madison Productions/SpringHill Company/Roth/Kirschenbaum Films-Netflix.
117 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 8 June 2022. Cert. 15.