Hustle

6,5 / 10

Everything’s fine when Adam Sandler returns to his métier in basketball. In his and LeBron James co-produced Hustle, he steps into the shoes of Stanley Sugarman, a man in his fifties who scouts talents for the Philadelphia 76ers and is visibly tired after his 30-year-long globetrotting hassle to find one missing puzzle piece after another to bring the team back into the title race. He desperately wants to be there for his family and things do get better when he gets promoted to assistant coach, but an unfortunate change in the ownership and a bad draft sets the 76ers back. It’s Stanley’s task again to find the true missing piece for their team and flies back to Spain. After a miscommunicated meeting, he walks by a crowd watching a street basketball game and becomes interested in the skills of Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez), who usually works at a construction day in, day out. As Bo demonstrates his talent at a tryout on the next day, Stanley decides to put everything on the line and travels with him to Philadelphia where a six-week-long training for the NBA Draft Combine is going to shape the future for both.

Hustle is first and foremost a very solid sports drama which runs into several clichés sports dramas seemingly cannot avoid: Setbacks in training, obligatory motivational speech, time lapses showcasing the improvement of Bo Cruz, his past, mean mind games and the absence of his family – it’s basically a checklist at this point. Bo’s journey can be precisely predicted at several occasions, but that does not distract from the very-well portrayed athletic transformation. Adam Sandler plays his part as a confident, persistent mentor and second father for Bo expectedly good. His concerns over the family’s future with the risks he takes is believable, but it never appears to be actually dangerous for anyone. The unsurprisingly hip hop-heavy soundtrack lets the picture flow, especially one street basketball sequence with Zarcort’s head-banger Partiéndonos la madre. Sandler and James also orchestrated a huge ensemble of current and retired NBA stars which enhances the comedy bits and overall atmosphere only if you regularly follow the league. Overall, this was an entertaining, heart-warming hommage to basketball with the little knowledge about the NBA and Sandler’s passionate performance, but the risks for Stanley's family feel slightly sugar-coated.

Review published on 9th June 2022.