Do you remember Adam Sandler in 2008 in “Zohan – All women come to the head”, original title “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan”, directed by Dennis Dugan? Or in “Shock Therapy”, “Anger Management”, by Peter Segal (2003) or in “50 First Dates”, “50 First Dates”, by Peter Segal (2004)?
Although he still acts in ultra-popular comedies and if these have been the springboard to his career, Adam Sandler is an actor who has nothing to envy to those who have always played only in committed films.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Drunk with Love”, Noah Baumbach’s “The Meyerowitz Stories” and Josh and Benny Safdie’s “Diamonds in the Rough” are examples of Sandler’s acting qualities. Just like “Hustle”, a sports drama directed by Jeremiah Zagar, available on Netflix from June, which talks about basketball without being banal and falling into the cage of the usual clichés.
The role played by Sandler is that of Stanley Sugarman, a former basketball player, observer for the “Philadelphia 76ers” who would like to shake up his career: stop traveling around the world and become (vice) coach.
Among the many motivational phrases, one of those that struck me the most is: “Obsession wins over talent”. You can be the best in any sector – cultural, sporting, financial, medical – but if talent is not “driven” by obsessive passion, by the strength of constant and positive thinking, the objectives will hardly be achieved.
And Adam Sandler knows this well since he is really a basketball fan in life and I would say that cinema is his obsession too!
The driving beauty of “Hustle” lies in the skill of the real basketball players who were involved in the film, in the rude and poetic hand of director Zagar at the same time and in the acting of Sandler.
Disappointed by what happens following the death of Rex Merrick, the historic patron of the team, played by the fantastic Robert Duvall, Stanley Sugarman finds himself with nothing: having canceled the dream of being the assistant to the coach, he has to travel in search again of talents. When he finally finds one in Spain – Bo Cruz, in whose role is a real Utah Jazz player Juancho Hernangómez – no one trusts him.
One of the reasons is the tension between Sugarman and the “new” patron of the team (Vince, Merrick’s son) which leads the protagonist to give up the role of talent and live a truly sad and desolate condition.
However Sugarman is seriously ready to bet on the boy’s potential; he invests in the first person because he thinks it’s really incredible, it’s “a unicorn”.
And here begins the active / sporting part in the strict sense of the film: training, mistakes, tests after tests, and so on with various montages of scenes dedicated to Bo’s path.
Some curiosities
The film was shot in Philadelphia, the director’s hometown. And it is not a case.
“50-year-olds have no dreams, only nightmares and eczema,” is one of Sandler / Sugarman’s maxims.
Even if the film tells the story of a champion, it does so from the point of view of those who train him: this gives a whole different pace to the story.
The stairs in Bo’s night training are the same ones that “Rocky Balboa” spit blood and sweat on (quoted several times).
As I had anticipated, there are many players, coaches and personalities from the NBA world: Tobias Harris, Dirk Nowitzki, Luka Dončić, Shaquille O’Neal, members of the Philadelphia 76ers; and then Anthony Edwards who plays Kermit Wilks and Moe Wagner, the face of Haas (along with Hernangómez are currently active players in the NBA). Goodies that basketball fans will love.
Finally, Sugarman’s wife and daughter are really two noteworthy characters: Queen Latifah plays the ironic Teresa, while in the role of daughter Alex, young and funny, there is Jordan Hull.
