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Adam Sandler is arguably the most basketball affiliated movie star working today. The love of the game was evident in his standup days, when he had that great bit about Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in one game . Who could forget the immortal Lakers game scene in 2011’s “Jack and Jill.” Okay, maybe not. But what about his amazing turn as a degenerate gambler obsessing on “this is how I win” betting on NBA games and players in 2019’s ultra-stressful “ Uncut Gems .”

In his latest Netflix picture, “ Hustle ,” Sandler returns to the boards, and in its opening minutes, the boards are all around the world. Sandler plays Stanley Sugarman, a talent scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. He’s on and off planes and in and out of hotels, watching locals all over the states and in Europe. He eats badly—“You’re killing yourself,” his wife, Teresa ( Queen Latifah ) says to him on a Zoom call. “That’s the idea,” he responds wryly.

Stanley feeling bad about himself is more subtext than text in Sandler’s disciplined, low-key portrayal. At a meeting with the team owner Rex Merrick ( Robert Duvall ), Stanley strongly urges not signing a German player. Rex’s son Vince ( Ben Foster , bearded and head shaven, signaling a real lack of vanity, as he looks appropriately ridiculous) wants the guy, and Stanley backs down. Rex notices this before awarding Stanley a coveted assistant coach job.

The gig doesn’t last. Rex passes away, Vince takes over, and the twerp demotes Stanley, instructing him he can get the coaching gig back if he goes back on the road and finds a missing piece.

In Mallorca, Spain, Stanley is entertained by an old friend who wants him to become an agent. No way says Stanley. He wants that assistant coach job back. Hanging on to a dream? “Guys in their fifties don’t have dreams,” he says. “They have nightmares and eczema. And yet. In Spain he sees a local player who’s got the stuff. Bo Cruz ( Juancho Hernangomez , a real-life player currently with the Utah Jazz), a tall drink of water with a lot of raw talent, a bit of a temper, and as we learn later, a rap sheet. Vince is resistant, Stanley brings the player to the States anyway, and is soon freelance.

At this point, the movie, directed by Jeremiah Zagar , turns into a variation of “Rocky” had it been told from the point of view of coach Mickey Goldmill ( Burgess Meredith ). Putting his family’s life on the line—fortunately his wife and teen daughter believe in him—he works at sanding down Bo’s rough edges, doing stair runs in the wilds of South Philly, and teaching Bo how to handle trash talk, which proves a rather persistent issue. Once Bo reaches a certain goal Stanley even exclaims “Yeah, Rocky!”

Bo and Stanley find themselves at the receiving end of a spiteful betrayal just as Bo is slated to show the basketball world what he’s got. You could call this a process film with twists—and of course with a feel-good conclusion. The solution to one of Bo’s problems is very 21st century, combined with the clout to book all-star cameos—Stanley’s daughter Alex, who’s looking to go to film school, contrives to make some viral video of Bo in action, introduced by Julius “Dr. J.” Irving himself.

If “Hustle” passes around a lot of sports movie cliches, it does so with a light touch. And its sense of atmosphere, and depiction of Stanley’s milieu, is sensitive and knowing, But be warned: this movie is VERY basketball-oriented. If you’re not a fan, you might feel a little lost. The movie’s got a nearly two-hour running time, and let me tell you, the roster of NBA players and luminaries who appear as themselves or in character roles that end the movie is pretty long. For a minute I actually wondered if Jordan Hull , who plays Stanley and Teresa’s crafty daughter, was a WNBA player herself. She is not. However, a guy named Jordan Hulls currently plays pro basketball in Germany. Just so you know.

Available on Netflix tomorrow, June 8.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film Credits

Hustle (2022)

117 minutes

Adam Sandler as Stanley Sugarman

Juancho Hernangomez as Bo Cruz

Robert Duvall as Rex

Ben Foster as Vince

Queen Latifah as Teresa Sugarman

Jordan Hull

María Botto as Paola Cruz

Heidi Gardner as Kat Merrick

Jaleel White as Blake

Raúl Castillo as Oscar

Jeremiah Zagar
Will Fetters
Taylor Materne

Cinematographer

Zak Mulligan
Tom Costain
Brian M. Robinson

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Hustle doesn't have any fancy moves, but it doesn't need them -- Adam Sandler's everyman charm makes this easy layup fun to watch. Read critic reviews

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Whether you're a Sandler fan, you love sports movies, or you're just in the mood for a solid feelgood drama, Hustle delivers. Read audience reviews

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Hustle videos, hustle photos.

Stanley Sugerman's (Adam Sandler) love for basketball is unparalleled, but the travel weary Philadelphia 76ers scout who has higher ambitions of being a coach remains stuck on the road looking for the next unknown talent. His search around the world leads him to Spain, when he discovers Bo Cruz (NBA player Juancho Hernangómez), an incredible streetball player with a troubled past. Stanley and Bo connect on and off the court, with their passion for the game and as loving family men who want to prove they can win, in basketball and in life. With the support of Stanley's wife, Teresa (Queen Latifah), can the underdogs come out on top?

Rating: R (Language)

Genre: Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Jeremiah Zagar

Producer: Adam Sandler , LeBron James , Maverick Carter , Jeff Kirschenbaum , Joe Roth , Zack Roth

Writer: Taylor Materne , Will Fetters

Release Date (Theaters): Jun 3, 2022 limited

Release Date (Streaming): Jun 8, 2022

Runtime: 1h 58m

Distributor: Netflix

Production Co: Roth/Kirschenbaum Films, Happy Madison Productions, Roth Films, Kirschenbaum Productions, SpringHill Entertainment

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos

Cast & Crew

Adam Sandler

Stanley Sugerman

Juancho Hernangomez

Queen Latifah

Teresa Sugerman

Robert Duvall

Jaleel White

María Botto

Heidi Gardner

Kat Merrick

Anthony Edwards

Kermet Wilts

Jeremiah Zagar

Taylor Materne

Screenwriter

Will Fetters

LeBron James

Maverick Carter

Jeff Kirschenbaum

Spencer Beighley

Executive Producer

Barry Bernardi

Jamal Henderson

Zak Mulligan

Cinematographer

Tom Costain

Film Editing

Brian M. Robinson

Original Music

Perry Andelin Blake

Production Design

Art Director

Andrea Mae Fenton

Set Decoration

Johnetta Boone

Costume Design

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Critic’s Pick

‘Hustle’ Review: Put Me In, N.B.A. Executive!

Adam Sandler and the Utah Jazz player Juancho Hernangómez lead an unsentimental sports drama in which success is tenuous and one mistake can derail a dream.

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By Amy Nicholson

“Hustle,” a terrific crowd-pleaser about the N.B.A. draft, knows that basketball is a sport of long arms and longer odds. Fewer than 500 players are in the N.B.A. at any given time ; gathered together, the players who have ascended to its ranks since it was founded in 1946 would not even come close to filling up Madison Square Garden. In the movie, Adam Sandler, a real-life devotee of the game, plays a weary scout for the Philadelphia 76ers named Stanley Sugerman who has spent his life sizing up potential rookies by their height, wingspan, speed and emotional fortitude. After Stanley stumbles on a lively streetball game in Mallorca, the Spanish island, he impulsively stakes his career (and his sanguine home life with his wife, played by Queen Latifah) on a raw talent who excels in only two qualities of the four.

Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez) is a gangly construction worker with tattooed limbs that seem to be everywhere all at once, like the tentacles of an aggressive octopus. In real life, Hernangómez is a power forward for the Utah Jazz. Onscreen, he’s a breezy, quietly charismatic presence who allows Sandler to do the bellowing, then delivers a punchline right to the ribs. Cruz and Stanley’s mental and physical preparations for the draft are an uphill struggle in the literal sense, with Stanley shaking his prospect awake at 4 a.m. to run the streets of Philadelphia while shouting obscenities at him to thicken his skin. (Here, love means translating insults into Cruz’s native Spanish.)

Jeremiah Zagar, who directed “Hustle,” cut his teeth making documentaries. Neither he nor the screenwriters Taylor Materne and Will Fetters romanticize the billion-dollar business of professional sports. They blot away any sheen of sentimentality. Success is tenuous; one mistake can derail a dream. Zagar keeps the cinematographer Zak Mulligan’s camera hand-held and light-footed. It casually clocks the rainbow of Lamborghinis outside an arena parking lot without going in for a belabored close-up. The naturalistic style shifts gears only in a centerpiece sequence that gamely tries to outdo “Rocky,” with a training montage so aerobically exhausting that it pauses halfway through, as if to catch its breath.

Zagar’s real achievement is drawing strong performances from the many nonprofessional actors who join Sandler and Hernangómez in the cast. The glowering N.B.A. goofball Boban Marjanovic, of the Dallas Mavericks, gets in several good quips as an aspirant who shaves a decade off his age, and the player-turned-commentator Kenny Smith capably handles a sizable part as a high-powered agent. Anthony Edwards, the Minnesota Timberwolves’s 20-year-old rising star known as Ant-Man ( himself the No. 1 draft pick in 2020 ), excels in the riskiest role as a trash-talking villain who deserves to have a sweat sock shoved in his mouth. Oddly, it is the well-regarded actor Ben Foster ( “Leave No Trace” ) who is left dangling as a front-office nepotism hire who flails angrily to hide that he’s out of his depth. Hobbling Foster with a caricature this thinly sketched is a flagrant foul.

Hustle Rated R for locker-room banter in two languages. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

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‘Hustle’ Is Adam Sandler’s Wet Jumper of a Basketball Movie

By David Fear

Adam Sandler may officially be entering his Blue Period. Oh, Our Patron Saint of the Holy Abbie-Doobie is still making the sort of broad, big-swing comedies he’s always made, still not afraid to channel his inner manchild in the middle of a lysergic sugar-high. (A friendly reminder: This movie came out in late 2020.) Those are the movies that have earned Sandler nice houses and nine-figure Netflix deals, and far be it from us to criticize how a man butters his very expensive bread. We still ride or die for Billy Madison. No one’s killing the golden-egg goose.

But when you look back on his career and zero in on the detours into more “serious,” or at least less “goofy-ass, juvenile, weird-as-hell” projects, you can see how the 55-year-old movie star has slowly been building up a portfolio outside of his no-brainer hits. There were highs ( Punch-Drunk Love, Noah Baumbach’s vastly underrated The Meyerowitz Stories ) and lows ( Reign Over Me, The Cobbler ). And then there was Uncut Gems, which remains in a league of its own and managed to synthesize so much of what’s great and grating about Sandler’s screen persona into one brilliant, twitchy time bomb of a character. It didn’t suggest that the comedian was working outside of his comfort zone so much as he’d aged into a second one, which allowed him to tap into something a little darker and a lot more daring if he wanted to. It felt like Sandler was leveling-up without letting go of what made him a star in the first place.

Hustle, his new movie, isn’t Uncut Gems, not by a long shot. Then again, it doesn’t need to be. It’s a surprisingly good sports movie that wants little more than to be a surprisingly good sports movie, one that knows it’s working with creaky triumph-of-the-underdog clichés but is willing to do a full-court press to sell them. “Obsession wins over talent” is one of the many courtside platitudes you’ll hear — like the genre Hall of Famer Hoosiers, this is a basketball movie that does double duty as a Coaching 101 handbook — and you never doubt that this film has a lot of obsession. You don’t get this amount of blood, sweat, and NBA backroom verisimilitude onscreen without it. It helps that the movie’s got talent on its side as well, from real-life players dropping sopping wet three-pointers to director Jeremiah Zagar calling the shots for these onscreen shot-callers while adding a ragged, indie vibe to everything. (His fictional-feature debut, 2018’s We the Animals, was the sort of woozy, poetic coming-of-age movie that turns being compared to a branch on The Tree of Life into a feature rather than a bug.)

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But while teamwork makes the dream work, there’s no question as to which player is the most valuable, or who’s lifting everyone up here. Sandler may not be the sole reason Hustle works, but he’s the one that makes it work way better than it should. You feel like his time spent with the Safdie brothers resulted in him lending Stanley Sugerman, the movie’s washed-out talent scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, more of a desperate, sad-sack edge; it’s definitely the sort of satisfyingly Sandman-in-Winter turn that taps into the same energy their film successfully harnessed. If nothing else, this drama definitely builds off of the notion that letting a famous hoops aficionado mix with actual pro ballers equals solid gold. Sander trading Gems ‘ banter with Keven Barnett worked so well — why not let him hang with what feels like two-thirds of the NBA’s active roster ? This should be a new subgenre: The sports-fan wish-fulfillment star vehicle. How else are we going to get Jack Nicholson back on screen?

Having spent too many years on the road, Willy Loman-ing it in chain hotels and eating fast food from Bangkok to Berlin in search of the Next Big NBA Thing, Sugerman is actually within grabbing distance of his personal brass ring. The franchise’s longtime owner (Robert Duvall!) wants to bump him up to assistant coach. He can settle down and spend more time with his wife ( Queen Latifah ) and teenage daughter (Jordan Hull). Then a sudden death shakes things up and the owner’s son (Ben Foster, oozing born-on-third-base entitlement) sends Stanley back out to scour the globe for “the German M.J.” or whoever else they can draft out of the international backwoods. A trip to Spain turns into a dead end, until Sugerman sees a giant in workboots schooling players at a public court. The guy’s name is Bo Cruz (Utah Jazz power forward Juancho Hernangomez). The execs back in Philly think this raw street baller is just “a giraffe on roller skates.” To Stanley, Cruz is a real-life unicorn — “if Scotty Pippen and a wolf had a baby” — and his own second chance to shoot his shot.

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The odds are against both of them, which means Sugerman has to singlehandedly mentor the kid, get him into league shape and strengthen his mental game x 100. (No less than the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards, playing a fictional draft favorite, trash-talks Cruz into losing his shit during an exhibition game, and he handles Hustle ‘s single best exchange like a pro: “You’re from Spain? Shit sounds wack.”) There will be training montages, and lots of ’em; it probably isn’t a coincidence that this takes place not only on Zagar’s home turf but in the same city of brotherly love that nurtured a one R. Balboa to a heavyweight championship. Speaking of Rocky : There are usually two types of sports-underdog movies, as in the ones that make coming from behind to win inevitable and the ones that make merely going the distance a victory unto itself. Hustle has a tendency to make you wonder which one it’s going to be, even if you strongly suspect you know where it’ll end up and which pitfalls it’ll plop into along the way. Complete genre rehaul, or even mild wheel reinvention, isn’t exactly on the menu.

And yet you can’t help getting engaged in this story that feels older than the game itself, because Sandler makes you feel engaged in it. He’s genuinely invested in this, in a way that feels different than your usual saintly-coach-by-numbers drama with a big above-the-title name. Even when he lightens things up with a few old-school Sandlerisms or the kind of smart-ass smack talk he could do in his sleep, you never sense that he’s phoning it in or winking out at us. Making a sports drama for a streaming service that’s paying you millions of dollars isn’t exactly an artisanal coup or a stakes-are-high gamble — it’s now streaming on Netflix, should you want to go straight from The Ridiculous 6 into a basketball movie — yet Hustle somehow feels more like a one-for-him joint than a one-for-them. It doubles down on the dour weariness of its central character and doesn’t downplay the tenuous nature of making it in the big leagues; it’s a feel-good movie that actually tries to earn its feel-good bona fides. Basketball vans will dig the way it weaves so many living legends and up-and-comers into its dramatic offense. Everyone else will just admire the movie’s hustle.

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“Hustle,” Reviewed: Adam Sandler’s Love Letter to Basketball

By Richard Brody

Jordan Hull as Alex Sugerman Queen Latifah as Teresa Sugerman Juancho Hernangomez as Bo Cruz and Adam Sandler as Stanley...

Adam Sandler, who’s a prolific movie producer, is at his best as an actor when playing a businessperson, as he does in “Hustle” (on Netflix), a breezy yet earnest basketball drama about the internal politics of the N.B.A. Because he’s neither an exceptional physical comedian nor a theatrically technical one but, rather, an extremely talented verbal one, Sandler is at his most interesting when his performances stick close to his own experience —or, at least, when they stand in a psychologically revealing relationship to it. That’s what he does in Judd Apatow’s “ Funny People ,” in the role of a famous comedian, and in the Safdie brothers’ “ Uncut Gems ,” in the role of a bling jeweller with a sports-gambling problem. In “Hustle”—which isn’t nearly as morally severe as “Funny People,” as freewheelingly tragic as “Uncut Gems,” or as aesthetically distinctive as either—Sandler gets to indulge the sport that he loves and fuse it with the garlicky, life-worn insiderness of his entertainment career.

“Hustle” is in the genre of avocational cinema, in which the star combines his passion for basketball with his understanding that it’s also a business—and with his experience of the entertainment industry at large. Sandler didn’t write or direct it, but he dominates it. Though with little in the way of directorial originality, character development, or social perspective to recommend it, “Hustle” manages to turn a clattery plot and a treacly sentimentality into a refracted self-portrait, a work of personal cinema. The script, by Will Fetters and Taylor Materne, goes deep into the details of turning an athlete into a pro, both physically and mentally, and of the exacting labors of the sport’s executives to effect that transformation. It’s, essentially, a movie-business story, with Sandler playing a member of the production staff, whose contributions are crucial, misunderstood, and nearly anonymous, except to other insiders in the know. He’s waiting for his chance to move up, and, when he finds that he can’t, he takes an entrepreneurial, independent risk. Adam Sandler, producer and star, stars as a producer.

He plays Stanley Sugerman, a former Temple University college-basketball star who has put in thirty years behind the scenes. He’s an international scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, and his many years on the road have wearied him and abraded his home life with his wife, Teresa (Queen Latifah), also a former Temple star athlete, and their teen-age daughter, Alex (Jordan Hull). The team’s elderly owner, Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall), an old-style so-called self-made man from a humble background, has great respect for Stanley’s acumen and abilities, and grants him a long-awaited promotion to the coaching staff. But Rex dies suddenly, and his arrogant, bratty, self-righteous son, Vince (Ben Foster), boots Stanley from the new job and orders him back on the road to find a potential star for the team to draft. (As Stanley tells his wife, “There was only one guy who knew what I was capable of, and he died.”)

On a trip to Spain, Stanley goes looking for a pickup game to play in; he finds a supremely gifted, raw talent named Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez, who plays for the Utah Jazz in real life) and brings him to Philadelphia, where things quickly fall apart. Vince orders Stanley to cut ties with Bo, but Stanley is sure of the young man’s ability and character, and has already made a commitment to him and to his mother (María Botto). Stanley takes matters into his own hands: he quits to develop Bo’s talent independently in preparation for the N.B.A. draft. To do so, however, he spends his own money, without telling Teresa. He also lies to Bo about the Sixers’ involvement.

The French say, “There’s no such thing as love, there’s only the proof of love,” and that’s the central idea that Stanley imparts to Bo—the lesson of effort and self-discipline that’s required to make it to the pros. Bo, though clearly a star in the making (Stanley says, “The kid is like if Scottie Pippen and a wolf had a baby”), doesn’t yet have the physical conditioning, the mental outlook, or the skill set of players who can turn pro—players who, at colleges in the U.S. or on international teams, have had the benefit of infrastructure and coaching. Stanley must become Bo’s coach, trainer, psychologist, and surrogate father. Whether by being up and out early enough to rouse Bo from his hotel bed at four in the morning for daily uphill runs or putting Bo through a battery of tightly focussed on-court exercises (involving such piquant details as dribbling two balls at once or throwing one of them through a rolling truck tire), Stanley puts as much care and exertion into the training as it demands of the athlete himself.

Another potential young star, Kermit Wilts (played by Anthony Edwards, a real-life member of the Minnesota Timberwolves), gets into Bo’s head with increasingly stinging trash talk, and Stanley works to help Bo keep his focus. The movie is filled with actual basketball eminences, whose very presence is invigorating; other current players in the film include Tobias Harris and Matisse Thybulle, as well as classic stars such as Doc Rivers (the Sixers’ real-life coach), Julius Erving, and Mark Jackson. Sandler riffs his way through the action with acerbic warmth, and his dialogue is peppered with basketball wisdom. (“Obsession is gonna beat talent every time”; “You absorbed the contact. I need you to finish through the contact”; “It’s you against you out there, and right now you is kicking your ass”; “It’s about the next shot and the next shot and the next shot”; “A good player knows where he is on the court. A great player knows where everybody else is.”)

“Hustle” is, in effect, Sandler’s version of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1954 inside-Hollywood drama, “ The Barefoot Contessa ,” in which a studio director with a failing career (Humphrey Bogart) travels to Spain and meets a dive-bar dancer (Ava Gardner), whom he brings to Hollywood and turns into a movie star, albeit with tragic results. The essentially documentary element of the fine points of basketball is the core charm of “Hustle,” extending also to the hard-nosed view of Stanley’s professional life and the web of connections that is fundamental to his ability to get things done. The direction of “Hustle,” by Jeremiah Zagar, is affectionate and efficient; he takes pleasure in filming a sport without delivering distinctive visual insights into its details or delights. The movie is set mainly in Philadelphia, Zagar’s home town, and he gives the outdoor action an appealing, albeit promotional, sense of place. With another inevitable twist of sentiment, Stanley’s efforts are also a family affair, depending, at a key moment, on Teresa’s own connections and on Alex’s untapped skills and generational knowledge. Yet the feel-good sentimentality that ultimately, of course, triumphs can’t dispel the threats of failure, even tragedy, that shadow the action. Sandler sells sentiment, but he’s fascinated by the reality of the game and the business, and it shows. ♦

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Cast & crew
User reviews

A basketball scout discovers a phenomenal street ball player while in Spain and sees the prospect as his opportunity to get back into the NBA. A basketball scout discovers a phenomenal street ball player while in Spain and sees the prospect as his opportunity to get back into the NBA. A basketball scout discovers a phenomenal street ball player while in Spain and sees the prospect as his opportunity to get back into the NBA.

Jeremiah Zagar
Taylor Materne
Will Fetters
Adam Sandler
Queen Latifah
Juancho Hernangomez
480 User reviews
125 Critic reviews
68 Metascore
1 win & 9 nominations

Stanley Sugerman

Teresa Sugerman

(as Juancho Hernangómez)

Vince Merrick

Kermit Wilts

Rex Merrick

Alex Sugerman

Oscar Morales

Kat Merrick

Blake - VP of Player Personnel

Mr. Everything

Big Serbian - Dimitri Jovanovic
Zeke Washington
(as Michael Foster)

Julius 'Dr. J' Erving
All cast & crew
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Trivia The original plot description said that Adam Sandler 's main character finds "a phenomenal street ball player while in China...." According to an interview with Dan Patrick , Adam Sandler stated that due to pressure from Netflix (which, as of the development of this movie, does not do business in China), the location was changed to Mallorca, Spain.
Goofs When Stan tells the story about the car accident that injured his hand, he said he threw out his hand to keep Leon from going through the windshield. Since Stan was driving, he would have injured his RIGHT hand, not his left as is shown throughout.

Stanley Beren : [to Bo] Do you love this game? I mean, love it with your whole heart. Because if you don't, let's not even bother. Let's not open that door. They're just going to slam it in our face. I love this game. I live this game. There's a thousand other guys waiting in the wings who are obsessed with this game. Obsession is going to beat talent every time. You got all the talent in the world, but are you obsessed? Let's face it. It's you against you out there. When you walk on that court, you have to think, "I am the best guy out there". So let me ask you again. Do you love this game?

Crazy credits The credits start with new or vintage footage of NBA players and coaches.
Connections Featured in Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: Hustle (2022)
Soundtracks The World is Mine Written by Wayne Hector (as Wayne Anthony Hector), Samm Henshaw , Oak Felder (as Warren Felder), Jerry Lordan (as Jeremiah Patrick Jordan), Sebastian Kole (as Coleridge Tillman) and Pop Wansel (as Andrew Wansel) Performed by Samm Henshaw Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited & Epic Records By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment

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Jun 8, 2022
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Hustle: Cuộc Đua NBA
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
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Runtime 1 hour 57 minutes
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Adam sandler and queen latifah in netflix’s ‘hustle’: film review.

NBA player Juancho Hernangómez also stars in Jeremiah Zagar’s inspirational drama about a struggling Philly pro basketball scout betting everything on an unknown talent.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Adam Sandler so seldom steps far outside his man-child comedy comfort zone that his more dramatic outings, notably Punch-Drunk Love and Uncut Gems , are uniquely rewarding. The same goes for the rare comedy in which the actor’s shtick is contained, channeled into a nuanced characterization, like Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) . There’s pleasure and poignancy watching Sandler in Hustle as basketball scout Stanley Sugarman, a man whose infectious passion for the sport keeps hitting a wall of defeat. Adhering to the formulaic requirements of inspirational sports dramas while supplying plenty of individuality and characters worth rooting for, the Netflix feature scores.

Full credits

Distribution: Netflix Production companies: Happy Madison Productions, Roth/Kirschenbaum Films, The SpringHill Company Cast: Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangómez, Ben Foster, Kenny Smith, Anthony Edwards, Robert Duvall, Jordan Hull, María Botto, Ainhoa Pillet, Raul Castillo, Jaleel White, Heidi Gardner Director: Jeremiah Zagar Screenwriters: Taylor Materne, Will Fetters Producers: Adam Sandler, Allen Covert, Joe Roth, Jeffrey Kirschenbaum, Zack Roth, LeBron James, Maverick Carter Executive producers: Barry Bernardi, Kevin Grady, Spencer Beighley, Jamal Henderson, Taylor Materne, Will Fetters, Judit Maull, Dave Meyers Director of photography: Zak Mulligan Production designer: Perry Andelin Blake Costume designers: Johnetta Boone, Tiffany Hasbourne Music: Dan Deacon Editors: Tom Costain, Brian M. Robinson, Keiko Deguchi Casting: Kim Coleman

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‘Hustle’ Review: In His First Major Role Since ‘Uncut Gems,’ Adam Sandler Scores in a Rousing Basketball Drama

It's a fiction that feels real — in part because of all the NBA players in it, but also because Sandler brings authenticity to the role of a downtrodden scout who finds a Spanish superstar-in-the-rough.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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Hustle - Film Review - Variety Critic's Pick

Years before “Uncut Gems,” you could see Adam Sandler was a good actor. He’d taken a step out of the ha-ha zone as early as “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002) — and going back as far as “The Wedding Singer” (1998), which he made after only two of his knockabout big-hit farces (“Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore”), he was already displaying the desire to add a splash of real-world nuance to his comic antics. And let’s not be snobbish about it: It’s not as if Sandler, in his way, didn’t give a helluva performance in “The Waterboy” (the greatest of his stupido/smart “classics”). That said, his performance in “Uncut Gems” as an addled, self-destructive spieler-chiseler-gambler who works in New York’s Diamond District felt cut from a different gem — it belonged in a Scorsese movie. It was, to me, the best performance of 2019, and from that moment on it was no longer quite accurate to say Adam Sandler was a good actor. He’d become a great actor.

“ Hustle ,” a heart-in-the-throat basketball drama that drops on Netflix on June 8, features Sandler’s first major performance since “Uncut Gems.” Given the extraordinary edge and daring of that Safdie brothers film, the new one may sound like a pointed return to more traditional Sandler fare. And in many ways it is; it’s a conventionally uplifting, family-friendly sports flick. Yet even in a movie like this one, the Sandler we see is a transformed actor with more than a trace of his “Uncut” flair. “Hustle” is fiction, but it often feels like a true-life drama (thanks, in part, to the extraordinary roster of NBA players and associates who appear as themselves), and that dovetails with the new authenticity of Adam Sandler, who has learned to pour every bit of himself into a role.

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Swathed in a mopey dark beard that brings out the gawkiness of his grin, he plays Stanley Sugarman, a veteran scout for the Philadelphia 76ers who still loves the game but is literally sick and tired of his life on the road, jetting around the world to look for the next breakout hoops star. Stanley gets put up in five-star hotels, but they all blend together, and whatever country he’s in he ODs on American junk food. He’s a morosely incurious business traveler, dutifully scouting the games but otherwise killing time, spending more weeks and months than he’d like away from his wife, Teresa (Queen Latifah), and teenage daughter.

One night in Spain, he wanders over to a street court thronged with spectators. Most of them are there to watch Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez, of the Utah Jazz), a towering construction worker who plays defense like a speeding wall and dunks like a hydraulic drill. Within minutes, Stanley knows that he’s found a superstar-in-the-rough. But can he convince his boss (Ben Foster), the dickish corporate owner of the 76ers, who has just taken over the team following the death of his own father (Robert Duvall), who was Stanley’s mentor? And can Bo, an unpolished talent and congenital hothead with no formal basketball training and an assault conviction on his record, find the right stuff — and the coolness of mind — to go up against seasoned NBA players? All that may be easier said than done.

“Hustle” is a buddy drama built around the slow-growing bond between Stanley the mouthy mensch and Bo the brooding, taciturn hoops-wizard-in-a-strange-land. At different points, it may remind you of sports movies from the formulaic Jon Hamm rouser “Million Dollar Arm” to “Jerry Maguire.” When Stanley trains Bo by having him jog, day after day, up a residential hill in Philly, the movie even nods to “Rocky.”

Yet “Hustle” has its own squarely satisfying and, at moments, enthralling texture. There’s plenty of basketball, but there is no big game and, in fact, no team-vs.-team game — it’s all workouts and tryouts and the showcase basketball decathlon known as the NBA Draft Combine, which the director, Jeremiah Zagar, shoots with invigorating verve and skill. “Hustle” doesn’t rewrite any rules, but the film’s wholesome seduction is that you believe what you’re seeing — in part because of the presence of players from the aging legend Dr. J to Trae Young to Kyle Lowry and several dozen more. But also because Sandler plays Stanley with an inner sadness, a blend of weariness and resilience, and a stubborn faith in the game that leaves you moved, stoked, and utterly convinced.

Reviewed at the Paris Theater, May 31, 2022. MPA rating: R. Running time: 117 MIN.

Production: A Netflix release of a Happy Madison, Roth/Kirschenbaum Film, The Springhill Company production. Producers: Adam Sandler, Allen Covert, Joe Roth, Jeffrey Kirschenbaum, Zack Roth, LeBron James, Maverick Carter. Executive producers: Barry Bernardi, Kevin Grady, Spencer Beighley, Jamal Henderson, Taylor Materne, Will Fetters, Judit Maull, Dave Meyers.
Crew: Director: Jeremiah Zagar. Screenplay: Will Fetters, Taylor Materne. Camera: Zak Mulligan. Editors: Tom Costain, Brian M. Robinson. Music: Dan Deacon.
With: Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangómez, Ben Foster, Kenny Smith, Anthony Edwards, Jordan Hull, Maria Botto, Ainhoa Pillet, Raul Castillo, Jaleel White, Heidi Gardner, Robert Duvall.

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Hustle review: Adam Sandler scores in Netflix's sweet, kinetic sports drama

The actor plays a basketball scout who finds the recruit of a lifetime on a Spanish street corner.

Leah Greenblatt is the critic at large at Entertainment Weekly , covering movies, music, books, and theater. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and has been writing for EW since 2004.

The thrill of an underdog story never really gets old. (Who roots, after all, for the overdogs?) Even the familiarity of it all feels like a balm; to watch films like Creed or Hoosiers or Friday Night Lights hit their well-worn beats time and again — the humble beginnings, the training montage, the third-act showdown — is to know that there is still hope (at least on screen) for the Little Guy. And Hustle , on Netflix June 8, is satisfying in the way the best sports movies are: a scrappy tale of adversity and triumph, smartly told.

Adam Sandler , his beard peppered with flecks of gray and his oversize polo shirts billowing like painters' tarps, is Stanley Sugerman, a longtime scout for the Philadelphia 76ers whose work life is blur of international flights, five-star hotels, and American fast food eaten from a bucket. (If it's a Tuesday he must be in Belgium, but the KFC remains the same.) Stan loves his job, even though it keeps him away for weeks at a time from his wife, Teresa ( Queen Latifah ), and teenage daughter ( The L Word: Generation Q 's Jordan Hull). He's less fond of his new boss, Vince ( Ben Foster ), a smug rich kid whose recruiting instincts are as scant as his hairline.

And then one night, waylaid in Spain, Stan finds his unicorn at a pickup game. Actually he's an octopus: a lanky tattooed giant in worn Timberlands — the kid doesn't even own a proper pair of sneakers — who blocks and dunks so effortlessly, Stanley sees pinwheels. His name, improbably, is Bo Cruz, and he's played by Utah Jazz power forward Juancho Hernangomez , who has never acted before but turns out to be uniquely charming in a tricky role. Bo is 22, a Barcelona construction worker and single dad who balks at first at Stanley's sales pitch. He's never played anything but schoolyard games and street ball; what chance is there for him in the NBA?

Stan, naturally, has enough faith for the both of them — so much so that he's willing to bring Bo back to Philly and train him on his own dime when Vince imperiously dismisses the idea. (Does it have anything to do with Stan's own dashed college-ball hopes long ago, and the forked-lightning scar on his hand? Maybe.) What happens from there is both entirely expected but somehow made fresh in the hands of director Jeremiah Zagar, who seems to be playing out his own Cinderella story off-screen (Sandler reportedly brought him on board after becoming a fan of his lauded but little-seen 2018 debut We the Animals ).

LeBron James also co-produced the film, and clearly he called in his Rolodex: Screen veterans like Latifah and Robert Duvall appear alongside a murderers' row of past and present all-stars, from Julius Erving and Doc Rivers to Trae Young and Aaron Gordon (several of them in substantial speaking roles). Will Fetters ( A Star Is Born ) and Taylor Materne wrote the well-oiled script, though Sandler's lines, not surprisingly, often seem to flow from him unrehearsed. The actor's clownish comic persona has been shooting off in more interesting directions for years, in films from Spanglish and Punch-Drunk Love to 2019's revelatory Uncut Gems , and he turns in a lovely, lived-in performance here as a man who knows he's running out of chances to leave his mark. ("Guys in their fifties don't have dreams," he cracks early on. "They have nightmares and eczema.")

It helps immeasurably as a viewer, no doubt, to love the game as much as he does; several dozen cameos will probably be wasted on those who wouldn't know Steph Curry if he was staring at them from a Wheaties box. But the movie doesn't demand some deep abiding knowledge of the draft system or dribbling violations to work as well as it does. Sandler and Hernangomez have a sweet, goofy chemistry, somewhere between razzing and familial, and the on-court sequences are consistently electric. Hustle isn't reinventing the sports-story wheel; it's hardly even spinning it forward. But in the moment, they're having a ball. Grade: A–

Review: Adam Sandler gives Netflix’s appealing basketball drama ‘Hustle’ its flow

Two men talk in a scene from the movie "Hustle."

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The last time I saw Adam Sandler in a movie — forgive me, I missed “Hubie Halloween” — he was sweating, cursing and agitating up a storm in “Uncut Gems.” It wasn’t his first great performance (or his last), but it revealed something about his particular gifts that few of his die-hard fans and equally die-hard detractors had ever fully appreciated.

There’s something great about watching a Sandler character straining to win at all costs, going to extreme lengths and pushing himself and everyone in his orbit to their limits. The critically derided lowbrow comedies with which he’s been too long associated tend to fail not due to offensiveness but laziness; it’s refreshing when a new project genuinely seizes his attention and, by extension, ours.

It also helps when the movie in question has been sculpted with some care, as is the case with the affecting, aptly titled Netflix basketball drama “Hustle.” Directed by Jeremiah Zagar (“We the Animals”) from a script by Taylor Materne and Will Fetters, it’s a formulaic but finely textured underdog story set amid the hyper-competitive bustle of the NBA pre-draft circuit.

Sandler is in fine form as Stanley Sugerman, a former athlete-turned-talent scout who spends his days jetting around the world in search of new blood for the Philadelphia 76ers. He’s very good at his job and very tired of it, tired of all the flights, hotel rooms and artery-clogging fast-food meals, and also of the time he spends away from his wife (a warm Queen Latifah) and teenage daughter (Jordan Hull).

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Sandler is a producer on the movie (as is LeBron James), and his involvement here grows out of a basketball obsession that’s well known, especially among fellow New York Knicks fans who’ve seen him courtside at Madison Square Garden.

Bearded, bespectacled and beleaguered-looking, he’s entirely believable as a man with a profound lifelong love for the game, even when the game hasn’t always loved him back. As he sizes up potential acquisitions, shuffles through offices and airports and stares at TV monitors with glazed-over eyes, Stan is a man in need of a reawakening. And he’ll find it one evening in Spain, when he sets eyes on a diamond in the rough named Bo Cruz, a construction worker by day and an astoundingly gifted basketball player by night. But for various reasons, including Bo’s lack of pro experience and Stan’s tough relationship with the 76ers’ spiteful owner, Vince (Ben Foster), it’ll take harder work than expected for these immigrant hoop dreams to come to fruition.

Bo is played, with a touching mix of athletic prowess and newcomer naiveté, by Juancho Hernangómez of the Utah Jazz (and formerly, briefly of the Boston Celtics, presently in the hunt for an NBA title). He’s one of many, many NBA players and alums who’ve been shrewdly enlisted to give “Hustle” a jolt of authenticity and to offset the occasionally rote formulations of the script.

Kenny Smith plays a retired star and close confidant of Stan’s. Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley are on hand to provide some (surprisingly simpatico) commentary. Tobias Harris, Tyrese Maxey, Seth Curry and countless other pro ballers step up in the game sequences, which are excitingly shot by Zak Mulligan and edited with propulsive snap and coherence by Tom Costain, Brian Robinson and Keiko Deguchi.

Several of those collaborators are Sandler production regulars, which speaks to Zagar’s skill at putting a personal spin on the generally anonymous aesthetics of the Netflix/Happy Madison enterprise. There’s a sense of grit here, a rough-hewn looseness to the visual construction that works especially well in the early Spain-set scenes, where Stan first sees Bo in action and then meets his mother, Paola (Maria Botto), and young daughter, Lucia (Ainhoa Pillet), who lean heavily on Bo for support. These hard-luck domestic scenes could have rung false or forced, but no one who saw “We the Animals,” Zagar’s scrappily intimate 2018 family drama , will be surprised by how assuredly he handles them here. (Deguchi served as one of that earlier movie’s editors.)

That visual roughness, bolstered by an energetic hip-hop/electronic soundtrack and well-chosen locations (Zagar grew up in Philly), also informs what feels like one of the longer athletic training montages ever filmed — a “Rocky”-esque roundelay of rude awakenings, shooting drills and uphill cardio workouts that itself plays more like a marathon than a sprint.

Even here, you can sense Zagar trying to push past convention, to transform a well-worn sports-movie staple into its own story rather than a shortcut. He’s trying to show us how coaching Bo rejuvenates Stan, igniting bromantic sparks and turning the usual mentor-mentee dramatic formula slyly on its head. But he’s also conveying a sense of the agility and stamina, mental as well as physical, that Bo will need to excel — not just in a game he knows well but also in a country and a system with their own curious codes and obstacles.

Two men play basketball as a crowd watches in the movie "Hustle."

To that end, Bo is given a persistent nemesis named Kermit Wilts (played by Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards), who gets into his head early and refuses to get out. Good as Edwards is, I wish that “Hustle” didn’t trade so easily in stock villains (Foster plays another, not for the first time) and other familiar beats, Bo’s and Stan’s respective tragic backstories included.

These narrative fallbacks coexist uneasily with the script’s occasional glances in the direction of inside-sports dramas like “Jerry Maguire,” “Moneyball” and especially “High Flying Bird,” which memorably turned a basketball draft story into a glassily cerebral anti-capitalist parable.

“Hustle” grants us a warmer-hearted, softer-headed peek inside the corridors of NBA power, and even here the tensions are wired along family-drama lines. (Robert Duvall appears as the 76ers’ much-venerated previous owner, who is Vince’s father but sees Stan as his truer heir.)

Its interest in the injustices and compromises of the sports world run secondary, in the end, to its greater priority, which is to find a place for a star in a game he loves.

I’m talking, of course, about Sandler, whose hustle is all the more persuasive here for its low-key restraint. He’s seldom worked harder, or more winningly, for an audience’s pleasure.

Rating: R, for language Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes Playing: In general release; starts streaming June 8 on Netflix

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Hustle Is Pure Adam Sandler Wish Fulfillment

There’s always been a wish-fulfillment quality to Adam Sandler’s films , particularly his comedies. Sometimes, the wish in question is simply a desire to get away with his pals to some fun new location to shoot a picture. Occasionally, it involves one of his characters accomplishing a classic Guy Goal: being a great football player , or a stud secret agent , or an irresistible ladies’ man . Yes, this might describe the types of characters most movie stars play, but there’s something to Sandler’s never-try-too-hard persona and acting style that lends these films the aura of average-guy fantasy. Whether he’s playing a superstar quarterback in The Longest Yard or a plastic surgeon who strings beautiful women along in Just Go With It , he still basically looks and acts like Adam Sandler. He counters authenticity with honesty.

In Jeremiah Zagar’s Netflix sports drama Hustle , however, the authenticity and the honesty finally come together. Sandler plays Stanley Sugerman, a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers who travels the world scoping out hot-prospect basketball players and diamonds in the rough, evaluating them to see if they might have a future in the NBA. One night in Spain, he chances upon Bo Cruz (played by real-life NBA forward Juancho Hernangómez ), an enormously talented 22-year-old construction worker and single dad who regularly destroys everybody on the city’s outdoor public courts, blocking and dunking on them with abandon.

Just like that, Stanley realizes he might have discovered the Next Big Thing, and the film details his painstaking efforts to get Bo noticed by NBA teams. There are obstacles at every turn, to be sure, but they’re mild, standard-issue ones. Much of the film focuses on Bo working out, or Bo playing in games. (Those looking to work on their ball-control skills will find some nifty exercises among the many, many montages.) If you read the script on the page, you might send it back for a rewrite and ask for “more of everything” before it could become a proper movie with proper story beats.

And yet, Hustle works, and it works beautifully, thanks to Sandler’s commitment. Stanley Sugerman seems close to the actor’s heart; one suspects that someone like Sandler would drop everything to become a scout or an assistant coach for an NBA team (even if it was for the 76ers, rivals to his beloved Knicks). As a result, the actor, who often delights in giving self-aware, hyperstylized turns, delivers an unadorned, shtick-free, surprisingly sincere performance. Stanley feels like a real person. Here’s a guy who is always tense, whether he’s fretting over something that’s gone wrong with Bo’s development or expressing joy over something that’s gone right. He expresses that tension in a highly relatable way, however. This is not the ostentatious angst of a movie protagonist but the ordinary anxiety of the common man. He could be you at your job.

There is an idea here, and it’s handled with surprising subtlety. Stanley has spent years traveling the world, and as a result has missed a lot of time with his family, with his wife Teresa (Queen Latifah) and aspiring filmmaker daughter Alex (Jordan Hull). He knows this — hell, he says it — and yet he can’t help but continue to fixate on work even when he’s back home. It makes for a contrast with Bo’s dedication to his own family — to the extent that he gets down in the dumps when his daughter and his mom aren’t nearby.

Again, it would have been easy to overdo this element of the story, to make Stanley a ruthless careerist who must be brought low before he can realize the error of his ways, and to use this difference in their characters to drive a rift between him and Bo. Who knows? Maybe proper screenplay construction would demand such escalation, so that the drama becomes more consequential. But the way Hustle portrays these family dilemmas seems more true to life. Stanley is a devoted, loving dad who just isn’t able to be there. When he is home, he and Teresa have the kind of casual, warm moments one might expect from a husband and wife who’ve put in some miles together. The whole movie feels so lived in, I wouldn’t have minded just hanging out in its world for a few more hours.

But more than anything, Hustle is about basketball — made by basketball obsessives, about basketball obsessives, for basketball obsessives. And here’s where the wish fulfillment really comes in. The film is loaded with NBA stars and executives playing themselves . Dr. J shows up for an extended cameo, Dirk Nowitzki appears on a phone for about a minute, and we get many, many more: Luka Dončić, Trae Young, Kyle Lowry, Tobias Harris … I mean, it just goes on and on. The cameos are so relentless that someone who isn’t familiar with basketball might wonder why random people keep showing up for five seconds of screen time and then disappearing. It’s enough to make you forget that Robert Duvall is also in this picture.

NBA stars even get some actual roles. Kenny Smith plays big-shot agent Leon Rich, Stanley’s longtime pal and former teammate. Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards plays Kermit Wilts, a stuck-up college star who enters into a bitter rivalry with Bo, and makes for a nice heavy, all soft-spoken trash talk and slithery bonhomie. Edwards would be great as the stuck-up, bullying adversary in a more typical Sandler movie. In fact, they could probably just remake this same story with more jokes. Hustle actually has a lot of the same elements as a classic Sandler comedy — including a hero with anger-management issues, in Bo’s case — but this time, it’s all played straight. Not all the players here are as accomplished actors as Smith and Edwards (or Hernangómez, who is a natural on film). Some of them are, to be fair, atrocious. But their presence still enhances the movie, not just because it feels like we’re really in the bowels of the NBA, but also because Hustle could just as easily be a party Adam Sandler gave so he could meet his heroes. It’s hard not to be charmed by it. He gets to live vicariously through them, and we get to live vicariously through him.

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Hustle Review

Down court jester..

Hustle, after limited theatrical release, premieres Wednesday, June 8 on Netflix.

Adam Sandler, in a unicorn-rare drama actually produced by Happy Madison, displays both his acting chops and his love of basketball in a traditional, heart-swelling sports tale about an aging NBA scout and a Spanish defense prodigy he hopes to bring into the big time. Hustle is an old-school, by-the-numbers, feel-good fable, featuring a Sandler who -- no surprise -- is easily able to carry an earnest dramatic story on his shoulders.

The soft downside of Hustle is that it's unnervingly conventional, and at times it goes overboard with its use of famous faces, but in the end it's still an effective, traditional underdog movie that hits all the right notes and allows Sandler to be weary, grumpy, and clever all at once. We've seen Sandler do drama before, but it usually comes to us as quirky and/or juiced-up roles for auteur directors ( Punch Drunk Love , Uncut Gems ). This is his stab at an everyman, allowing himself to be schlubby and genuine (side note: it's probably the closest he's come to playing himself, in a way).

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Hustle is available in select theatres in the US on June 3rd, 2022 and on Netflix in the US on June 8th, 2022.

Hustle is an excellent example of "cliches are cliches because they work." You'll feel sadness and joy at the appropriate times. You'll root for the heroes to overcome odds, naysayers, and personal demons. It's the story of two men trying to realize their dreams, with the more interesting half of that being that one of them is in his 50s and doesn't think it's possible (much like society doesn't think it's possible) to have new achievements in that stage of life.

In something that's sort of become a tradition for Netflix films, very talented people are featured in tiny supporting roles, as we get Robert Duvall, Ben Foster, SNL's Heidi Gardner, and Queen Latifah in the background here, not doing much (though Latifah has good chemistry with Sandler, playing his wife). Duvall pops in briefly as a mentor, Foster's just around to be smarmy, and Gardner is basically simply a plot point. For the most part, Hustle emphasizes its ball players, whether it's legends or media personalities playing themselves or real athletes playing different characters (Kenny Smith as the best friend or the Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards as an on-court nemesis). That's the focus here. Sandler's character, Stanley Sugarman, lives and breathes basketball, so it makes sense that the movie should do the same.

Adam Sandler's best dramatic role is in...

As a long-toiling scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, Stanley's been away for his job more than home for his family, and missed more of his daughter's birthdays than should ever be acceptable. Finally made an assistant coach, Stanley finds his home base dream ripped away from him when the owner's son, Vince (Foster), sends him back overseas to find a desperately needed "next big thing." On a lark, Stanley discovers Juancho Hernangómez's Bo, a construction worker who just happens to exhibit every X-factor he's looking for. Vince rejects Stanley's pick so Stanley decides to bring Bo to the States on his own dime, taking a huge risk.

Hernangómez, who plays for the Utah Jazz, is a good hand as Bo. Because Sandler is so great at chatter and banter, he more than makes up for Bo's terse demeanor. Plus, Bo is played very childlike, so the buddy elements here work simply because it's all designed for Sandler to talk circles around someone. And it pays off over the course of the movie, too, when Bo begins to open up more and a firmer rapport is established.

If this had all been done poorly, it would have felt like someone underacting paired with someone over-extending, but it works well, and Stanley's surrogate father-slash-coach role allows for a playfulness to shine through. For better or worse, Hustle is often a two-man show, but occasionally the story's able to side step a convention or two and the final act comes up with its own version of a three-pointer at the buzzer.

You don't have to be immersed in the world of sports, or even just basketball, to fall under Hustle's spell. It can be enough that the characters have an unbending passion for it, and the way Sandler talks about it, and unleashes the jargon, feels natural and inviting. Hustle is a solid inspirational sports movie woven into some of Sandler's style of humor, which allows it to feel a touch more unique than some of the other basketball movies out there.

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Adam Sandler is wonderful in a sublimely standard sports story about a man taking huge personal and professional risks to help showcase an undiscovered talent. Hustle's underdog angle allows Sandler to shine as a basketball scout whose own dreams of court glory passed him by, and who coaches and mentors someone he never intended to help past a certain point. Drama has always suited Sandler well, and here he proves he can slip into a movie steeped in emotion and sentiment and stake his own claim.

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Hustle review: Adam Sandler’s sports drama comes out on top

In 2019, Adam Sandler proved he still has what it takes to be one of Hollywood’s most versatile and charismatic performers with his performance in the Safdie Brothers’ adrenaline-fueled Uncut Gems . Not since 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love had Sandler played a character so different from his usual goofball archetype, and he earned some well-deserved acclaim for his turn as the film’s self-destructive lead. But Uncut Gems did more than just reaffirm Sandler’s status as a more versatile leading man than his filmography would have you believe.

Once upon a time in Spain…

An uphill battle

Never back down.

The film also offered the promise of being the first entry in a new chapter in Sandler’s career, one featuring more variety and legitimately dramatic stories from the Happy Gilmore star than viewers had seen in previous years. While it remains to be seen if that’s the direction Sandler’s career will ultimately take in the coming years, Hustle certainly seems to suggest that it might be.

The new film is the latest production between Sandler and Netflix , but unlike many of the other titles that the two parties’ collaboration has produced, Hustle is a decidedly straightforward drama. Sandler anchors the underdog sports film with one of his most grounded everyman performances to date, and while Hustle doesn’t do anything that one could qualify as game-changing, it still manages to land enough of its shots to walk away victorious.

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Once upon a time in Spain…

Directed by Jeremiah Zagar, Hustle follows Stanley Sugarman (Sandler), a man with a complicated past who has spent the majority of his adulthood working as a basketball scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. When he grows tired of waiting for the team’s arrogant owner, Vince Merrick (Ben Foster), to give him the promotion he’s earned, Stanley takes matters into his own hands by recruiting a Spanish basketball player named Bo Cruz (real-life basketball player Juancho Hernangómez), whom he discovers during a business trip abroad.

Stanley firmly believes Bo has what it takes to be one of the NBA’s top players. However, he and Bo quickly realize that, if they want to achieve their respective dreams, that means they’ll have to work together to make it in a league that seems determined to keep them both out of it. Their struggle to succeed takes many turns along the way that will be predictable to anyone who has seen a handful of other sports movies, but the relationship between Sandler and Hernangómez is authentic enough to make the clichéd nature of their bond less damaging than it might otherwise be.

The same can be said for Hustle as a whole. Taylor Materne and Will Fetters’ script for the film delivers all of the beats that viewers will likely want it to, including a lengthy training montage and several rousing, motivational speeches, and the movie never seems remotely interested in subverting viewers’ expectations or turning certain clichés on their head. The film is, instead, totally comfortable telling a familiar story, and while that prevents it from becoming one of the genre’s Hall of Fame titles, it doesn’t stop it from making a tangible mark.

That’s because Hustle always makes sure to put its characters at the very center of its story, and it invests in them completely from its first scene to its last. That’s especially true for Stanley, whom Sandler brings to life with an understated performance that feels reminiscent of his turn in 2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories . However, it’s a testament to Sandler’s presence as a performer that he manages to maintain Stanley’s restrained nature without ever tamping down his own charisma or likability.

The older he gets, the more Sandler seems to resemble the kind of American character actors that were prolific in the 1970s and 80s, and Hustle puts his increasingly rugged appearance to good use. Opposite him, Hernangómez brings real heart and pathos to Bo Cruz, a talented and hardworking player whose love for his family emerges as both his greatest strength and biggest weakness. As Teresa, Stanley’s wife, Queen Latifah also turns in a reliably charismatic performance in an underwritten role. There’s enough chemistry present between her and Sandler that it’s hard not to wonder why it took so long for them to play a couple on-screen.

While his direction occasionally veers more into music video territory than it should, Jeremiah Zagar often succeeds at keeping Hustle ’s visual focus on its characters. The film’s sports sequences aren’t anything to write home about, which may come as a disappointment to viewers, but Zagar’s grounded, intimate visual style makes up for the lackluster nature of Hustle ’s basketball set pieces.

There’s an earnestness to Zagar’s direction that helps imbue Hustle with a lot of heart, and it’s clear that he’s not the only one involved in the film who felt passionate about getting it right. Sandler is, famously, a big basketball fan in real life, and his desire to deliver a solid and entertaining sports film is apparent in every frame of Hustle . Although there are moments when the film’s script goes a little off the rails and edges into overly saccharine territory, Hustle nearly always manages to right itself.

Ultimately, the film is a well-made piece of crowd-pleasing entertainment, one that boasts several memorable performances from its lineup of capable actors. That said, it’s the earnestness running through Hustle that makes it land as well as it does. That’s because, as Stanley tells Bo at one point in Hustle ’s second act, there’s no use in pursuing something if you’re not passionate about it. Fortunately, when it comes to Hustle , there’s plenty of passion and heart to go around.

Hustle premieres Wednesday, June 8 on Netflix.

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Hustle review: adam sandler hits the right notes in netflix's nba drama.

Hustle succeeds in being exactly the movie it sets out to be: A glimpse inside what it takes to get into, and stay in, the very competitive NBA.

Hustle utilizes a little bit of everything Adam Sandler ( Billy Madison ) excels at to make a comforting sports dramedy that is a welcome addition to his filmography. Sandler's love for the NBA lives out loud in this film and — from the film's lead to the extras — the leagues fit in seamlessly with a wide range of actors. The film isn’t perfect, but it is genuine when the time calls for it. Hustle is a part of the new era of sports movies that aren’t about playing the game, but the machinations around it. Director Jeremiah Zagar’s ( We The Animals ) touch is just right for this sort of film that could have easily been mishandled by a different filmmaker. Not every dramatic turn is lucky enough to be Uncut Gems , and yet The Ridiculous 6 didn’t exactly evoke shades of Happy Gilmore . But in this era of his career, it's good to know Sandler can still deliver a solid dramedy.

When a big career change comes down on Philadelphia 76ers scout, Stan Sugarman (Sandler) is forced to stop feeling sorry for himself and go out and find the next big thing. He finds that in construction worker Bo Cruz ( Juancho Hernangomez ) in the basketball courts of Spain. Bo hustles and takes money from unsuspecting ballers, but he also shows Stan that he has what it takes to play in the big leagues. Stan foots the bill and secretly tries to get Bo into the NBA draft, but is met with a world of opposition. Both Bo and Stan must reckon with their past selves to become the NBA figures they aspire to be.

Related: Is Netflix's Hustle A True Story?

The collection of Sandler's dramatic performances seems to grow every four or five years. At this point, the Saturday Night Live alum has at least tamed critics of his more serious work. Surprisingly, Hustle is not trying to be something it isn’t. The film plants its feet firmly in the NBA world and does not move. The closing credits are void of names like Queen Latifah ( Set It Off ) and Robert Duvall ( Days Of Thunder ) and instead include basketball players like Trae Young, who barely has speaking lines in the film. Though confusing at first, the choice is actually a love letter to basketball and employs found footage to evoke an earnest salute to the sport.

Hernangomez is known to the hard-core NBA fan, but not the layman. This ends up working to his advantage because the audiences come in without certain assumptions or knowledge that could derail their enjoyment of the film. Hernangomez plays Bo well despite this being his first acting gig. Credit to Zagar for placing him in situations that not only keep him away from exhibitionist monologues, but also showcases that this was the right player to cast in this role. Opposite the stoic Hernangomez is Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards, who makes it clear that he is the player most capable of sinking his teeth into a wordy scene. Edwards essentially plays the antagonist and, in scenes where he is talking trash to Bo on the court, he becomes the most engaging performer in the entire film.

Hustle brings together the cross-section of NBA fans and Sandler fans, particularly those who enjoy serious Sandler fare ; they all have something to enjoy in this film. The actor has always been believable as a family man. But a balance is struck when he does it effortlessly and the family is not at the forefront of the script. It allows viewers to enjoy that aspect of him without the film having to spend time world-building. Ultimately, it’s Hernangomez’s relationship with his wife and daughter that ultimately pulls on the heartstrings. Maria Botto ( Good Behavior ), in particular, shines as the funny but loving mother.

The main knock on Hustle is a training montage long enough for two songs to play in their entirety. Training montages are a staple in the sports movie genre and Hustle has its heart in the right place. But montages are generally where script writing, directing, and editing are sometimes all fighting against each other. The montage is centered around Bo running up a hill in less than two minutes. The first half is a slog for both him and the viewer. The second half works much better. In smaller ways, the film makes the same mistake as well. Whether it's kids filming basketball or just Sandler traveling, every montage in the film is at least a little too long and sidelines the more heartwarming moments that do deserve that time.

Supporting roles from Ben Foster ( Hell Or High Water ) — unusually reserved but still stubborn as always — and Heidi Gardner ( SNL ) occasionally throw a wrench in Hustle . Trying to break the record for the longest consecutive montage doesn’t help, either, but none of that matters. Hustle succeeds in being exactly the movie it sets out to be: A glimpse inside what it takes to get into, and stay in, the very competitive NBA.

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Hustle is streaming on Netflix as of June 8. The film is 117 minutes long and is rated R for language.

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‘Hustle’ review: Adam Sandler’s basketball drama has a surprisingly good handle of the game

Movie review.

By now you’d think you know what you’re getting with an Adam Sandler sports movie. “Happy Gilmore” and “The Waterboy” have conditioned us to expect silly voices and left hooks from irritated game show hosts.

But in “Hustle,” Sandler’s new basketball movie on Netflix, he pulls a crossover. The film, directed by Jeremiah Zagar, isn’t the farce you might expect. Rather, it’s one of the most textured and affectionate films about basketball that’s come along in a long time. Starring Sandler as a road-weary NBA scout and with several teams’ worth of All-Stars in cameos, “Hustle” has a surprisingly good handle and feel for the game.

A longtime Knicks fan and pickup player, it’s probably inevitable that Sandler would eventually find his way to a hoops movie. “Uncut Gems,” one of his most recent leading roles, as a gambling-addicted jeweler with a big bet on a Boston Celtics game, veered closer to the sport and co-starred Kevin Garnett. The LeBron James-produced “Hustle” isn’t as distinctive or (thankfully) as stress-inducing as Josh and Benny Safdie’s film, but it’s likewise rich in atmosphere and finds Sandler in fine dramatic form.

Sandler plays Stanley Sugarman, a talent scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, who spends his days circling the globe looking for the next Dirk Nowitzki. Life on the road has beaten him down — his wife, Teresa (Queen Latifah), and daughter (Jordan Hull) are accustomed to his absences — and Stanley harbors dreams of transitioning to the coaching ranks. Or not dreams, exactly.

“Guys in their 50s don’t have dreams,” he says. “They have nightmares and eczema.”

Stanley’s opportunity finally comes when the team’s longtime owner, Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall), promotes him to assistant coach. But after Merrick dies, the team is taken over by the owner’s brash son Vince (Ben Foster), who has feuded before with Stanley over the potential of a German prospect. Vince puts Stanley back on the road. “You’re valuable as a coach,” he tells him. “You’re indispensable as a scout.”

Back on the road, Stanley is in Spain when he notices a crowd gathering outside a gym, on the blacktop. There he sees a construction worker named Bo Cruz (played by NBAer Juancho Hernangómez) whose talent is off the charts, even playing in Timberlands. Stanley, agog at Bo’s defensive and shooting prowess, trails Bo to his home to recruit him to the Sixers. After a fallout with Vince, Stanley devotes himself to getting Bo into the NBA draft. Along the way, Sandler gets to put his own spin on that fabled sports movie type, the hard-training coach. “Hustle” doesn’t veer wildly from the “Rocky” formula, but it does capture something fresh about the bond between player and coach. It’s also a clever twist that Bo’s greatest talent is his defense, and his biggest hurdle to success is keeping his cool.

All of this plays out in Taylor Materne and Will Fetters’ script with a keen sense of detail that will delight NBA fans. There is even a reference to a woebegone Andrea Bargnani trade that will make Knicks fans chuckle (and cringe). The cameos keep coming, including most of the current Sixers roster, Allen Iverson, Boban Marjanović, Luka Dokic, Trae Young and some more fleshed-out characters, like Bo’s rival draft pick Kermit Wilts, played charismatically by Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards.

With each appearance, the distance between “Hustle” and the actual NBA grows increasingly small. Stanley’s great fear is being left outside “the game,” and “Hustle” is often intoxicatingly close to it. This is a movie where you get to see Sandler call Nowitzki “Schnitzel” on FaceTime and marvel at Julius “Dr. J” Erving (a still extremely potent presence) showing up to a playground court.

Some might say “Hustle” verges close to NBA advertisement, but Zagar, a South Philly native who emerged with the 2018 indie “We the Animals,” frames the pros who populate his film like people and players, rather than stars. And Sandler imbues Sugarman with not just genuine basketball obsession but the common midlife struggle of finding only ingratitude from an employer after half a life of tireless service. After some less strenuous workouts for Netflix, Sandler works hard to give “Hustle” the full-court press — even if his wardrobe of jerseys and mesh shorts might have come right out of his closet.

Sandler’s film would make a solid doubleheader with another Netflix film, Steven Soderbergh’s “High Flying Bird,” the 2019 drama with Andre Holland as a sports agent hustling during an NBA lockout. “Hustle” is a more amiable film, less interested in prying into the underpinnings of the league. But for a sport that has only occasionally been captured authentically by the movies, “Hustle” has genuine flow.

With Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangómez. Directed by Jeremiah Zagar. 117 minutes. Rated R for language. Streaming on Netflix.

‘Hustle’ Review: Adam Sandler’s Film of Support and Compassion Rises Above Sports Movie Clichés

Sandler's love of basketball makes all the difference in Jeremiah Zagar's sports drama.

When it comes to his dramatic work, Adam Sandler has found just the right approach for himself. Sandler has taken on roles that if they were a bit broader, could easily be one of his comedic roles. Films like Punch-Drunk Love or Reign Over Me played off the rage that often hides under the soft-spoken attitude of Sandler’s characters, while his last dramatic role in Uncut Gems maximized Sandler’s inherent charm and grandiosity into what might be his best performance.

Sandler’s latest excursion into drama with Jeremiah Zagar ’s Hustle harnesses Sandler’s clear love for sports. That love has been obvious since early on in his career, with Happy Gilmore , The Waterboy , and The Longest Yard , and even Kevin Garnett playing a major part in Uncut Gems . But while these films had fun with Sandler’s admiration for sports, Hustle turns it into a strength, showcasing a heartfelt love for the game of basketball, in a film that once again proves that Sandler’s greatest gifts lie in how he utilizes the talents he has learned from years in comedy and molding them into wonderful dramatic roles.

In Hustle , Sandler plays Stanley Sugerman, a former basketball player-turned-talent scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. He’s tired of spending weeks on the road, looking for the next great thing in basketball, and when the team’s owner ( Robert Duvall ) offers him an assistant coach position, it looks like he’s finally where he’s wanted to be for so long. But as the team turns over to the manager’s son ( Ben Foster ), Stanley is sent back on the road, with promises that if he finds the team’s missing piece, he’ll be back in the coaching gig.

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Stanley thinks he finds what he's looking for with a one-on-one basketball hustler, Bo Cruz ( Juancho Hernangomez ), who takes to the court in boots and lives with his mother and daughter. Stanley knows he’s found something special with Bo, but when the 76ers pass on Bo, Stanley decides to dedicate himself to the potential star and get him into the NBA.

Hustle doesn’t work without a strong bond between Stanley and Bo, and thankfully, Sandler and Hernangomez are quite lovely together. Sandler is excellent in the mentor role, and while Hernangomez isn’t much of a talker, he can say a lot with a look or his demeanor. While Will Fetters and Taylor Materne ’s screenplay is hitting many of the trainer-trainee tropes one would expect from a sports film, and Zagar’s direction fills Hustle with one too many training montages, they also turn this dynamic into an affecting relationship about two men who desperately need someone to believe in them and find that in each other.

However, in this relationship, Hustle focuses too much on Stanley and not enough on Bo’s life—which is often hinted at and seems even more compelling than Stanley’s. Bo has clearly had to struggle over his 22 years, with a sordid history that ends up causing him trouble throughout the film. When Bo first meets Stanley, he worries about pursuing this dream and losing his job, worried that he won’t be able to take care of his mother and daughter. There’s a worthwhile story there, but, unfortunately, Fetters and Materne don’t give him the same amount of attention they give Stanley.

Thankfully, Stanley is a fantastic lead, and his attempt to get Bo success never feels lecherous for his own needs, but rather, that Stanley is great at his job, a scout who loves basketball and wants the game—and the players he finds—to be the best they can be. Again, through the performance as Stanley, we can feel Sandler’s deep love for basketball coming through, a passion that feels earnest when coming from Sandler. This doesn’t feel like just acting, this feels like a genuine part of who he is.

In addition to the bond between Stanley and Bo, Hustle also is particularly delightful when focusing on the family relationship between Stanley, his wife Teresa ( Queen Latifah ), and their daughter Alex ( Jordan Hull ). Sandler and Latifah made an excellent team, as a couple of former athletes who found love in college, and their love is palpable whenever these two share the screen. This family dynamic also helps build up a spirit of support and caring for others that Hustle thrives in. It’s just unfortunate that Hustle doesn’t show that same level of attention to Bo’s family as it does to Stanley’s.

Of course, with this type of sports/training/mentor film, Hustle can’t help but fall into the occasional cliché, yet that focus on support and care and a dedication to helping others reach their potential make those platitudes go down a bit easier. Hustle isn't breaking the mold of what a sports film can be, but it is yet another reminder of Sandler's gifts as a dramatic actor through an extremely charming and compelling story about a mentor trying to help another reach their potential.

Hustle is now available to stream on Netflix.

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‘Hustle’ Review: Adam Sandler and LeBron James Team Up for Netflix’s Rock-Solid Basketball Drama

David ehrlich.

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Adam Sandler really, really loves basketball, and — in his post-“Meyerowitz Stories” era — he also seems to be interested in making good movies. At the very least, he no longer seems actively opposed to the idea. With “ Hustle ,” those two passions come together ( again ) in a grounded, affecting, and immaculately made dramedy that has far more in common with “Jerry Maguire” and “The Way Back” than it does any of the other Happy Madison productions on Netflix .

If it falls a bit short of those other movies by opting for easy lay-ups over more ambitious field goals, “Hustle” still drives to the net hard enough to seem like the second coming of Madison 23 Productions, the short-lived subsidiary that Sandler created for his more serious work (and then euthanized after “Reign Over Me” and “Funny People” both flopped).

It’s also the best film that LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s SpringHill Company has spearheaded thus far — even better than “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” if you can believe it — and the rare mid-budget Netflix feature that doesn’t come off like it was slapped together by an algorithm, even if it assumes the programmatic rhythms of basic streaming content as it dribbles through the fourth quarter. “Hustle” may not be the greatest redemption story ever told about second chances, third careers, and the hard work of triumphing over your worst tendencies, but the film holds fast enough to the courage of its convictions to feel like it’s got skin in the game.

That courage traces back to the decision to hire “We the Animals” director Jeremiah Zagar rather than subbing in some generic studio hack off the bench, and it pays off from the very first shot (a cold and shadowy dolly push that screams, with all due respect: “We’re a long way from ‘Hubie Halloween’”). One look at Sandler’s rumpled Stanley Sugerman as he sags through through the bowels of a Serbian basketball arena — the latest stop on the Philadelphia 76ers scout’s never-ending quest to scour the world in search of tall new talent — is all we need to know that he’d rather be somewhere else.

In Stanley’s case, “somewhere else” has always been at home with the wife and teenage daughter he never gets to see ( Queen Latifah plays Teresa Sugerman with enough warmth and gravitas to compensate for the character’s “stoic wife” clichés and make you glad that Jennifer Aniston was a healthy scratch for once). But there’s a vague element of masochism to Stanley’s work — he’s clouded by the self-loathing air of someone who believes he deserves to suffer for his sins and eat KFC out of his carry-on even though the 76ers fly him business class. “You’re killing yourself,” a friend says at the sight of Stanley’s latest meal. “That’s the idea,” he deadpans in response (Will Fetters and Taylor Materne’s script is often raw to the bone despite the story’s increasingly formulaic construction).

And just when it seems like Stanley might be absolved of his mysterious past mistakes — just when the beloved owner of the 76ers (Robert Duvall, casting a long shadow with a short cameo) gives our guy the assistant coaching job he’s always wanted and makes all of his hoop dreams come true — everything goes sideways and Stanley is left at the mercy of his old boss’ large adult son (a good and loathsome Ben Foster) who sends him right back out on the road. Stanley’s only ticket home? Unearthing a potential NBA star who nobody else knows about, bringing him back to the States for the draft combine, and flattering the weasely new owner into thinking it was his achievement.

The first task proves hilariously easy, as Stanley happens across a penniless 6’9″ construction worker named Bo Cruz at a streetball game in Spain (he’s played by Utah Jazz power forward Juancho Hernangómez, who has the face of a fashion model, the wingspan of a small Pterodactyl, and the natural screen presence of someone who’s never acted before, which suits the naiveté of his character just fine). The rest of it… not so much. Cue the “Creed”-worthy training montage, the slow-building sense of shared baggage and mutual trust, and the shit-eating haters who force Stanley and Bo to become a two-man team unto themselves.

As you might imagine by this point, “Hustle” doesn’t serve up anything you haven’t seen before, but it sticks to the game plan with confidence and makes you root for Stanley and Bo — together and separately — every step of the way. Much of that stems from Sandler’s inherent likability, which has seldom been as pronounced as it is here, where it isn’t diluted by angry man-child affectations or any of the other scrims the actor often hides behind.

Stanley is just a decent guy who’s struggling to outrun his demons — “Guys in their fifties don’t have dreams,” he cracks, “they have nightmares and eczema” — and not let other people beat him in the one-on-one game he’s been playing against himself since his own days as a potential basketball star (that Sandler never steps onto the court is a missed opportunity in a movie that only seems to be heading towards its own Yoda whips out a lightsaber at the end of “Attack of the Clones” moment). Sandler delivers enough grade-A disgruntled coach energy and tossed-off zingers to sustain a film that makes up in personality what it lacks in red meat.

Stanley’s painful backstory is unpacked in such bland fashion that “Hustle” almost seems afraid of it, and his family starts to feel reverse-engineered from their plot contrivances as the film around them clumsily transitions its way down the court (I’ve never seen anything even try a “Deus ex Dr. J” before), but Zagar’s steady hand squeezes a lot of juice out of the simplest dynamics.

If the relationship between Stanley and Bo doesn’t go much deeper than the one between Billy Crystal and Gheorghe Mureșan in “My Giant,” well, what ever does? It doesn’t hurt that Hernangómez is easily able to evoke the unique dislocation of an athlete abroad, or that Sandler and James’ combined star power has paved the way for a Hall of Fame-worthy supporting cast of NBA legends past and present — Hernangómez’s former teammate Anthony Edwards brings smack-talking credibility to the role of Bo’s nemesis, even if the movie drops the ball on his arc — or that Philly native Zagar shoots the south side of the city with an even greater sense of hardscrabble romance than “Silver Linings Playbook” brought to Upper Darby and the city’s western suburbs.

It’s only during the endgame that “Hustle” loses its heart, as the film’s most persistent tension — the tug-of-war between its potential as a legitimately elite sports drama and its purpose as a broadly entertaining piece of Netflix content — slackens into a series of predictable beats that head-fake you towards an unexpected ending only to sand off the last few edges the story has left. That extended shrug of a finale is particularly disappointing at the end of a film that’s just a few great plays away from joining the likes of “Punch-Drunk Love” and “Uncut Gems” in the first breath of reasons why Sandler is so much better than the “Do-Over” years might have suggested. If he keeps working this hard, the same man who once symbolized Netflix’s commitment to mediocrity could eventually turn out to be the streamer’s greatest draft pick.

“Hustle” opens in select theaters on Friday, June 3. It will be available to stream on Netflix starting Wednesday, June 8.

Hustle review – Adam Sandler scores in rags to riches tale

A jaded basketball scout rediscovers his love for the game after spotting a prodigy hustling on the street

N ot so much a sports movie, but rather a film that deals with the business of sport, Hustle has something in common with Oliver Stone’s thunderous American football drama, Any Given Sunday . The sport in this case is basketball – Adam Sandler plays Stanley, a jaded scout who hauls himself around the world in search of fresh talent – but the film is charged with a similar kinetic crackle to that of Stone’s picture.

Stanley’s enthusiasm for the game is dulled by the corporate muscle flexing of his boss (Ben Foster), and his health is taking a beating from the room service. Then he spots a Spaniard, Bo Cruz (played by NBA star Juancho Hernangomez), playing ball on the street, hustling opponents for cash. And he sees raw talent.

There’s plenty here that is predictable – the training montages, the rags to riches story arc – and it’s a conventional choice for director Jeremiah Zagar, after his poetic debut We the Animals . But this is quality film-making, with enough that’s distinctive – Dan Deacon’s score is a pulsing, panicky jolt of energy – to appeal beyond basketball fans.

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Hustle Movie Review: Adam Sandler stands tall in a heartwarming tale of second chances

Rating: ( 3.5 / 5).

A game of basketball is hanging in balance. The protagonist has the ball in his hands. He is a picture of focussed determination with a single drop of sweat glistening on his eyebrow. The defence is closing in. The camera pans to his feet to show that he is just outside the 3-point circle. We see the electronic scorecard where the points are displayed in bright red, and we note that the protagonist's team needs three points to win that coveted championship that has been eluding the team for years together. There are spectators who are holding in their breaths afraid to exhale and disturb the euphoric equilibrium in the stadium. The ball is dribbled twice, and he takes his shooting stance. We now see random faces in the audience to show how deep is their investment. Then, we are shown the rim of the basket, and then the wrist of the protagonist, and either aided by silence or a rousing soundtrack, the protagonist shoots the ball... and... well, almost every second sports drama, especially a film based on basketball will mostly have iterations of the scene. However, despite being a largely safe and predictable sports drama, avoiding stereotypes and having an enterprising Adam Sandler at the centre of things is what makes Netflix's latest release, Hustle , a lovely heartwarming sports film.

Director: Jeremiah Zagar

Cast: Adam Sandler, Juancho Hernangomez, Queen Latifah, Robert Duvall

Streaming on: Netflix Stanley Sugerman (Adam Sandler) is a talent scout for the Philadelphia 76ers and is on the quest to get that one missing piece to the puzzle that would make the Sixers win the championship. It takes him across the lengths and breadths of the world. This quest comes at a cost of missing out on his daughter's birthday for nine consecutive years. The former player wants to become the coach, but the management thinks his time is better spent scouting. After being on one exhausting trip too many, Stanley comes across the 22-year-old Bo Cruz (Utah Jazz's Juancho Hernangómez) in Spain, and then begins the hustle to get the latter drafted into a team.

Hustle is actually an interesting case study on how even the most cardboard of villains, the most cliched of scenes, and the most predictable of tropes, manage to keep us excited, engaged and invested. The first time we see the new boss of 76ers, we know Stanley will face obstacles in getting people to like his 'find'. The first time we see Bo leaving his family to come to the USA, we know they would be back in the last act to give him the proverbial push. However, the bite-sized twists to these templates are just about enough for a film like Hustle. Take, for instance, the scene where Bo's family comes to cheer him up at the stands. One might expect him to showcase his best at the game. But what happens there suddenly feels more real, and hence, emotional. These mini subversions, written by Taylor Materne and Will Fetters, hit the target with amazing consistency. Their writing also works in the scenes we have come to expect out of sports dramas. For example, the training montage sequence between Bo and Stanley. We know its origins. The makers know its origins. The actors know its origins. We have seen Rocky . And yet, that scene works like clockwork. As they say, cliches exist for a reason... they work.

Even when Hustle follows the same beats as countless Hollywood sports dramas, it is Adam Sandler who stands tall to inject freshness into the proceedings. His droll voice and never-ending jibber-jabber come in handy for the hustler that he plays in the film. When he is riling up Bo, putting on his game face against 76ers new boss Vincent, or pleading with his former teammates and now agents, Adam Sandler's Stanley Sugerman is a calming presence and the actor adds one more feather to his reinvention cap. Although the role is diametrically opposite to what we saw in Uncut Gems , it is fascinating to see how Adam Sandler is reinventing himself for a new generation of audience. Fans of Happy Madison films will also be happy to see the new avatar of Adam Sandler where he steps into roles one might not ascribe to him. We have seen films like The Longest Yard , where he coached a team of prisoners in football. However, in Hustle , we see his trademark brashness and never-ending shenanigans turn into mellowed sarcasm and subtle knockout punches. While Jeremiah Zagar's directorial works on most counts, there are a few missteps here and there, especially with an actor like Queen Latifah not getting a meaty enough role. However, both Latifah and Robert Duvall lend gravitas to characters that greatly impacts Stanley Sugerman's life. We see a bunch of real-life NBA players waltz in and out of the screen, and it is fun to see them in a setup like this. Cinematographer Zak Mulligan wonderfully encapsulates the hustle and bustle of the basketball courts, and delivers smart flourishes to ensure that even in the NBA-level of games, the audience doesn't forget that Bo came here from playing street basketball.

At one point in the film, Robert Duvall's Rex Merrick looks Stanley in his eye, and says, "Never back down." And it is almost like this was something someone special once told Adam Sandler too. With Uncut Gems , and now Hustle , Adam Sandler seems to be determined to show the world that there are two things that he'd always do with his career — Never forget to have fun... and Never back down.

All things 'Hustle'

Review: A sports writer and entertainment writer debate ‘Hustle'
Where Adam Sandler’s Netflix movie ‘Hustle’ was filmed in Philly
You know ‘that guy’ from nearly every Adam Sandler movie? He’s from Philly.
Adam Sandler played a secret pick-up game with Tobias Harris, other NBA stars while filming ‘Hustle’
The best — and worst — Philly sports movies of all time
A Q&A with ‘Hustle’ director —and Philly native — Jeremiah Zagar

Despite Hustle being a basketball-focused film, you don’t need to know the sport intimately to like it, according to Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt . The story, instead, is what shines, so much so that its “sturdy script … pulls you into the underdog story on a human level,” writes Rooney.

But given the deep bench of cameos from NBA stars like the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards, Sixers great Julius “Dr. J” Erving, and the Dallas Mavericks’ Boban Marjanović, the effort to appeal to basketball fans may be wasted “on those who wouldn’t know Steph Curry if he was staring at them from a Wheaties box,” the AV Club’s Howard writes.

If you do know basketball, though, some reviews note that the film may feel a bit more authentic thanks to the cameos. When done well, they work toward “bolstering a mostly standard-issue underdog narrative,” writes The Wrap’s Robert Abele . Or not, if you ask the Chicago Tribune’s Nina Metz .

“The movie, directed by Philly native Jeremiah Zagar, feels like the opposite of an insider’s take on the sport,” Metz writes . The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, meanwhile, notes that the endearing, squeaky-clean image of the NBA that Hustle portrays makes it look “a bit like a corporate promo for the NBA.”

But whether the cameos work in terms of authenticity, Zagar was able to coax serviceable, even good, performances out of the NBA stars — a skill that the director honed in his 2018 critical darling We the Animals , which features several nonprofessional actors, the Hollywood Reporter’s Rooney writes. Hernangómez, he adds, is in fact “immensely likable and magnetic in his first screen role” as Cruz.

And Sandler, Variety’s Gleiberman writes, is particularly good, having “learned to pour every bit of himself into a role” in his post- Uncut Gems career. So, don’t expect “anything notably representative of the Sandler oeuvre” a la Happy Gilmore or The Waterboy , The Wrap’s Abele writes.

» READ MORE: The best — and worst — Philly sports movies of all time

So, is it good? Well, on movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, Hustle is pulling a 90% positive , but it might not be everyone’s thing. Luckily you can decide for yourself — the film is now in select theaters ( including at several in the Philadelphia region ), and will be available to stream via Netflix starting Wednesday.

Adam Sandler's Worst Movie Ever, According To Rotten Tomatoes

L oving Adam Sandler means making your peace with the actor's wildly inconsistent output. It's not like The Sandman has ever been a critical darling; even during his rise to superstardom in the '90s, "Happy Gilmore" and "The Wedding Singer" were the only movies of his that you could reasonably call well-reviewed ( and that's coming from an ardent "Billy Madison" defender ). But the films that he's churned out under his Happy Madison Productions, which was founded in 1999, have been all over the place quality-wise. Even most die-hard Sandlites probably wouldn't go to the mattresses over stinkers like "Jack and Jill" and "Grown Ups 2."

That's only become doubly true since Sandler entered his alliance with Netflix in the 2010s. Sometimes, you end up with little more than "content" for viewers to stream and immediately forget, but you can also get remarkably good stuff like "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)" and "You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah," or even a fascinating curiosity like "Spaceman." Of late, there's even been an upswing in the general quality of his Netflix projects. Films like "Hustle" and "Leo" might not be the cream of the crop, yet they've managed to bridge the gap between Sandler's low art and more ambitious ventures with a sturdy mixture of zany gags and earnest drama.

However, if we're going to talk about The Sandman at his best, then we also need to talk about him at his worst. And it doesn't get any worse than his first Netflix film, "The Ridiculous Six" (so far as Rotten Tomatoes is concerned, that is).

Read more: The 15 Best Comedy Duos Of All Time

The Ridiculous 6 Is Ridiculously Bad

You know how weirdos fixated with rallying against what they perceive as "woke culture" love to argue that "Blazing Saddles" couldn't be made today (as though movies like "Get Out" and "Sorry to Bother You" aren't just as bold and provocative in their skewering of racism)? Well, if anyone gets it in their mind to directly try and one-up Mel Brooks' famous Western parody, they're going to have to do better than Sandler, director Frank Coraci, and Sandler's co-writer Tim Herlihy did with "The Ridiculous Six."

Much like the movie its title is obviously riffing on, "The Magnificent Seven," Coraci's Western comedy is a "Getting the Gang Together" flick -- with the twist that its gunslingers are all long-lost brothers who reunite to find their no-good-varmint father (Nick Nolte, because who else would you hire to play a long-absent, deadbeat dad?). The Sandman himself stars as Tommy aka "White Knife," a white man raised by Native Americans, with Taylor Lautner, Terry Crews, Jorge Garcia, Luke Wilson, and Rob Schneider playing his siblings. In the right hands, that setup could feasibly lend itself to a satire with just as much bite as "Blazing Saddles" had upon its original release. Here, though, all you get is "broad racism and misogyny" (to quote Brian Tallerico's half-star review for Roger Ebert.com ), enough to prompt several of the film's Native American actors to walk off the set during production.

Tallerico isn't on an island, either. All 37 reviews currently on Rotty T's for "The Ridiculous Six" are "Rotten," with the average score coming in at 2.4/10 (meaning, critics didn't just dislike it on a pass/fail scale, they hated it however you choose to frame it). Happily, everyone seems to agree that Sandler's Netflix products have only improved since then, which ... isn't saying much on its own. At least we know where the bar is, I guess?

Read the original article on SlashFilm

COMMENTS

Hustle movie review & film summary (2022)
Adam Sandler is arguably the most basketball affiliated movie star working today. The love of the game was evident in his standup days, when he had that great bit about Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in one game. Who could forget the immortal Lakers game scene in 2011's "Jack and Jill."
Hustle
Movie Info. Stanley Sugerman's (Adam Sandler) love for basketball is unparalleled, but the travel weary Philadelphia 76ers scout who has higher ambitions of being a coach remains stuck on the road ...
'Hustle' Review: Put Me In, N.B.A. Executive!
In the movie, Adam Sandler, a real-life devotee of the game, plays a weary scout for the Philadelphia 76ers named Stanley Sugerman who has spent his life sizing up potential rookies by their ...
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"Hustle," Reviewed: Adam Sandler's Love Letter to Basketball
June 8, 2022. "Hustle"—starring Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangómez, and Adam Sandler—manages to turn a clattery plot and a treacly sentimentality into a work of personal cinema ...
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Hustle: Directed by Jeremiah Zagar. With Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangomez, Ben Foster. A basketball scout discovers a phenomenal street ball player while in Spain and sees the prospect as his opportunity to get back into the NBA.
'Hustle' Review: Adam Sandler in Inspirational Basketball Drama
Adam Sandler and Queen Latifah in Netflix's 'Hustle': Film Review. NBA player Juancho Hernangómez also stars in Jeremiah Zagar's inspirational drama about a struggling Philly pro ...
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'Hustle' Review: In His First Major Role Since 'Uncut Gems,' Adam Sandler Scores in a Rousing Basketball Drama Reviewed at the Paris Theater, May 31, 2022. MPA rating: R. Running time: 117 ...
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Hustle. review: Adam Sandler scores in Netflix's sweet, kinetic sports drama. The actor plays a basketball scout who finds the recruit of a lifetime on a Spanish street corner. The thrill of an ...
'Hustle' review: Adam Sandler's Netflix basketball drama scores
Review: Adam Sandler gives Netflix's appealing basketball drama 'Hustle' its flow. Juancho Hernangomez, left, and Adam Sandler in the movie "Hustle.". The last time I saw Adam Sandler in ...
Movie Review: Adam Sandler in Netflix's NBA drama Hustle
Movie Review: In the Netflix sports drama, Adam Sandler plays a basketball scout for the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, and the film, produced by LeBron James, is loaded with cameos, from Trae Young ...
Hustle Review
Hustle is a solid inspirational sports movie woven into some of Sandler's style of humor, which allows it to feel a touch more unique than some of the other basketball movies out there. Netflix ...
Hustle review: Adam Sandler's sports drama comes out on top
Scott Yamano / Netflix. Directed by Jeremiah Zagar, Hustle follows Stanley Sugarman (Sandler), a man with a complicated past who has spent the majority of his adulthood working as a basketball ...
Hustle Review: Adam Sandler Hits The Right Notes In Netflix's NBA Drama
Hustle utilizes a little bit of everything Adam Sandler ( Billy Madison) excels at to make a comforting sports dramedy that is a welcome addition to his filmography. Sandler's love for the NBA lives out loud in this film and — from the film's lead to the extras — the leagues fit in seamlessly with a wide range of actors.
'Hustle' review: Adam Sandler teams with LeBron James for an NBA movie
"Hustle" doesn't score any points for originality. Yet Adam Sandler's latest Netflix film - produced with, among others, LeBron James - mostly works in following a familiar playbook ...
'Hustle' review: Adam Sandler's basketball drama has a surprisingly
Movies 'Hustle' review: Adam Sandler's basketball drama has a surprisingly good handle of the game . June 8, 2022 at 9:51 am Updated June 8, 2022 at 3:08 pm . By . JAKE COYLE.
Hustle Review: Adam Sandler's Film of Support Rises Above Clichés
Hustle isn't breaking the mold of what a sports film can be, but it is yet another reminder of Sandler's gifts as a dramatic actor through an extremely charming and compelling story about a mentor ...
Hustle review
H ere is an underdog sports movie with the longest training montage I think I have ever seen - it pretty much had an interval. Hustle is co-produced by its star Adam Sandler and real-life ...
Hustle Review: Adam Sandler & LeBron James Team Up for Netflix Drama
June 2, 2022 9:00 pm. "Hustle". Adam Sandler really, really loves basketball, and — in his post-"Meyerowitz Stories" era — he also seems to be interested in making good movies. At the very ...
Hustle review
N ot so much a sports movie, but rather a film that deals with the business of sport, Hustle has something in common with Oliver Stone's thunderous American football drama, Any Given Sunday.The ...
Hustle Movie Review: Adam Sandler stands tall in a heartwarming tale of
Hustle Movie Review: Adam Sandler stands tall in a heartwarming tale of second chances. Hustle is actually an interesting case study on how even the most cardboard of villains, the most cliched of scenes, and the most predictable of tropes, manage to keep us excited, engaged and invested.
Hustle (2022 film)
Hustle is a 2022 American sports drama film directed by Jeremiah Zagar from a screenplay by Taylor Materne and Will Fetters and co-produced by and starring Adam Sandler as a down-on-his-luck NBA scout who discovers a raw but talented basketball player in Spain (Juancho Hernangómez) and tries to prepare him for the NBA draft.The film also stars Queen Latifah, Ben Foster, Robert Duvall, Heidi ...
'Hustle' movie reviews: What critics say about Adam Sandler's
Hustle, which began filming in town in fall 2020, stars Adam Sandler as the schlubby Stanley Sugerman, a downtrodden scout for the 76ers who wants to get off the road and spend more time with his wife, Teresa (Queen Latifah), and daughter, Alex (Jordan Hull).During a scouting trip to Spain, he finds underdog Bo Cruz (Utah Jazz forward Juancho Hernangómez), a street baller with a heart of gold ...
Adam Sandler's Worst Movie Ever, According To Rotten Tomatoes
L oving Adam Sandler means making your peace with the actor's wildly inconsistent output. It's not like The Sandman has ever been a critical darling; even during his rise to superstardom in the ...

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