Hustle

by Julian Spivey

Photo: Netflix

Director: Jeremiah Zagar 
Starring: Adam Sandler, Juancho Hernangomez & Ben Foster 
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 hour & 57 minutes 

Adam Sandler might be 55 years old and nearly 30 years into his film career, but he’s more popular than ever when you combine his critical reviews and audience scores, according to Entertainment Weekly. Sandler’s latest film “Hustle,” which premiered on Netflix on June 3 and his directed by Jeremiah Zagar, has a 92 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes (only director Noah Baumbach’s “The Meyerowitz Stories” from 2017 is higher) and the audience score is at 93 percent, which is eight points higher than his previous most popular audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, which was his 1996 golf comedy “Happy Gilmore.”

There are a few Sandler dramatic performances I’ve yet to see – most notably his 2002 film “Punch-Drunk Love,” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and 2019’s “Uncut Gems,” directed by Josh and Benny Safdie – but I’ve never seen him better than as basketball scout Stanley Sugerman, one of the best in his field, but with aspirations of becoming an assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers NBA franchise. At the beginning of the film Sugerman’s dreams come true when he’s promoted to assistant coach by the team’s owner Rex Merrick, played by acting legend Robert Duvall, but when Merrick dies shortly after and the team is taken over by his overzealous son Vince, played by Ben Foster, who doesn’t care much for Stanley, it’s back to the airport and overseas to find the next big international basketball prospect.

While in Spain, Stanley stumbles upon a ruckus at a local outdoor basketball court where a tall, tattooed Spaniard is hustling folks at basketball while wearing his construction work boots. Stanley is enamored with the man’s play and follows him to his home in hopes of intriguing him with a potential NBA career. The young man, Bo Cruz, played by actual NBA player Juancho Hernangomez in his acting debut, doesn’t want to leave his daughter and mother in Spain, but knows it’s a great opportunity to provide for them if successful.

It's not going to be an easy trip to the NBA, Stanley knows this, but he doesn’t realize how much Vince is going to be against his newfound stud of a prospect, especially after finding out he has a previous arrest for assaulting the boyfriend of his daughter’s mother. Cruz’s attitude and inability to let others get in his head is also going to be a major detriment along the way, no matter how good he looks at times.

I said I’ve never seen Sandler better, but I’ve mostly seen his as an immature imbecile in his comedies – some sophomorically funny, others just sophomorically dumb. His role as Sugerman doesn’t seem hard, but it’s a winning performance for Sandler as an everyman trying to live out his dream and the determination he shows, mixed with Sandler’s affable charm make you root for his character the entire flick.

The hugely impressive acting in “Hustle” is that of Hernangomez, especially considering he’d never acted before and he’s on the screen nearly as much as Sandler from the moment he’s introduced. It was incredibly important for the film to find an actual basketball player to make all the plays and training experienced in the film (and there’s a training montage that goes on too long in my opinion) look realistic. It was also important to have the film’s basketball villain Kermit Wilts be a real player too and young NBA star Anthony Edwards (of the Minnesota Timberwolves) does a good job at playing the brash, trash talker.

I’ve seen a handful of basketball movies over the years and “Hoosiers” is the only great one of the bunch. In fact, there aren’t even many good basketball films period. “Hustle” may not be “Hoosiers,” but it’s definitely a good film. It’s an easy lay-up, if not a slam dunk.