Hustle

Hustle is just about the most complete love letter to the world of professional basketball one could possibly desire. It is hyper focused on the nitty gritty of how players get scouted, recruited, and drafted to play in the NBA, to a level of detail and specificity that a typical game day fan would never encounter. It features an unbelievable number of real NBA star players, coaches, analysts and TV personalities. But more than all that, it tells a moving and human story about hard work and sacrifice through the lens of sports. Hence the name: hustle.

Though the film is largely concerned with future superstar Bo, played by professional basketballer Juancho Hernangomez, the film’s protagonist is Stanley Sugerman, played by the Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde that is Adam Sandler. Here, perhaps because of Sandler’s deep and long standing passion for the game of basketball, we get the serious and focused Sandler of films like Punch Drunk Love, rather than the phoning-it-in Sandler of Murder Mystery or Grown Ups 2. Sandler’s Sugerman is a middle aged talent scout, tired of the extended work trips that take him all around the world but away from his family. He dreams of being a coach, but those dreams are put on permanent hold when ownership of his employer, the Philadelphia 76s, unexpectedly changes hands.

This setup is perfect for what the movie wants to accomplish. Sugerman’s discovery of Bo, his commitment to developing him as a player, and his clashes with the system along the way all cleverly serve dual-purposes within the narrative. At the same time Bo is growing as a player, it is forcing Sugerman to grow as a coach. As Bo confronts the demons that keep him from accomplishing what he is capable of on the court, Stanley comes to terms with the past mistakes that ended his collegiate playing career. Bo has a strong bond with his young daughter that defines his life choices, Stanley’s travel schedule makes him more of an absentee father than he would like. This creates this beautiful flow where the story is really two stories intertwined, sometimes paralleled sometimes as foils, but it happens so effortlessly that you don’t even notice it.

The performances are remarkably good here, too, especially considering how many of the performers don’t come from an acting background. Sandler plays the beleaguered talent scout with the appropriate mixture of weariness, rage, frustration, and sadness, but Sandler also gives him a charm, both in his efforts to reconnect with his estranged family and his efforts to mentor Bo, that you just can’t help but want to see him succeed. Hernangomez, as Bo, isn’t given a lot to say, possibly to mask his shortcomings as an actor, but honestly he does a lot with what he was given and I wouldn’t have immediately suspected that he was cast for his ball skills first and his acting second, rather than the other way around.

The other basketball players are nothing special, however. There isn’t a great deal of world class emoting coming from Moe Wagner or Boban Marjanovic. However, the story and direction are constructed such that that isn’t needed. There are a few stiff performances and a few that border on overacted, but for the most part the director seemed to be able to make everyone comfortable with delivering a real-enough feeling performance for the camera. For example, Anthony Edwards plays one of Bo’s rivals. Edwards is never called upon to deliver much in the way of dialogue other than on the court trash talk, which is something he can probably tap into effortlessly even without Meisner training.

The inclusion of real professional basketball players and personalities may have forced some clever adaptations to the script and to the direction, but it also lends the film real credibility when it comes to the sport aspects. Obviously, the scenes where players who are supposed to be NBA players, or on the way to be NBA players, look good because the people playing in them can really ball. The basketball doesn’t just look like top level basketball, it is top level basketball. But it goes beyond that. It elevates the piece for anyone in the audience who is a big fan of the NBA or basketball in general. The use of all these endemic figures in the sport, from players turned media personalities like Barkley and Shaq, to coaches like Doc Rivers, to streetball legends like The Professor and Main Event, as themselves both gives the piece a feel of authenticity and signals to that audience that the filmmakers are, like that viewer, a true fan of the game.

Some of the cameos and some of the moments can come across as a tad cheesy and out of touch. There is an extended sequence involving social media that has a certain air of “fellow kids” about it, as a mid-forties film director tries to work out how to best portray the impact of YouTube and TikTok on professional sports, but without explicitly mentioning either brand by name for complicated legal reasons. That being said, it does tap into that grass roots, street ball feeling that has been around forever and mainstream since at least the And1 tour, so the sequence doesn’t detract from the overall movie very much. It is just a bit of a sour note in an otherwise enjoyable melody.

As is to be expected from a sports movie, Hustle gives you that sense of elation from when the hard work pays off into something bigger. It doesn’t try to be cute and do something sly; it gives you exactly what you want. And that’s fine. I want to leave the film pumping my fist in the air because the guy I was rooting for was able to make his dreams come true. How the film gets there is done with enough flair, and with enough fun little twists and variations on the theme, that the film never feels cliche or lacking in fresh ideas.

Would Recommend: If you love basketball.

Would Not Recommend: If you hate basketball.