Hustle

Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangomez, Robert Duvall, and Ben Foster co-star in Hustle, a sports drama about a basketball scout finding his way back to his ...

Between the sincerity shared by Sandler and Hernangomez and the high-level craft, Hustle provides enough diversions to hoist our hearts high, even if we wind up craving more specificity from these characters and their travails. And while the movie partly suffers for it, Hustle is still effectively tender. (Why none of these athletes spot the 6’9” Bo as a ringer stretches the imagination.) Bo is a single father who wants a better life for his young daughter, Lucia, and uses basketball as a solution. Hustle is decidedly glitzier and bigger than Zagar’s previous film, the critical indie darling We the Animals. It deploys an all-star ensemble, ingenious camerawork, and sharp editing to uplift a cliché story about earnest fatherhood and distant hoop dreams. But Stanley is tired of the road. And Sandler as weary NBA scout Stanley is the film’s rousing compass.

"Hustle" doesn't score any points for originality. Yet Adam Sandler's latest Netflix film -- produced with, among others, LeBron James -- mostly works in ...

, Sandler is in his element as the shambling scout with a wealth of knowledge at his disposal but not always the courage to speak up. They include, but aren't limited to, Julius Erving, Dirk Nowitzki, Doc Rivers, and TNT's Kenny Smith, the last actually playing a character and, like Hernangómez, doing a perfectly fine job of it. Here, Sandler's Stanley Sugerman is a well-traveled scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, who stumbles on a streetball hustler in Spain, Bo Cruz (NBA player Juancho Hernangómez), whose lockdown defensive skills prompt Stanley to describe the guy more than once as being "like Scottie Pippen and a wolf had a baby."

Adam Sandler has found a surprising new niche: movies in which he acts alongside NBA power forwards featuring scenes at Celtics-Sixers games.

In an interview with a Spanish newspaper, Hernangómez said that the Celtics had “super-selfish players” and featured “no team-building.” The Celtics traded Hernangómez on January 19, and immediately began one of the greatest midseason turnarounds in NBA history. But here’s the strange thing: Despite the fact that Smith is an agent, Inside the NBA still exists in the Hustle universe—there’s a scene in which Barkley and O’Neal are shown on TV advocating for Cruz to get an invite to the combine. The Sixers are just about the only team mentioned until the very end of the movie—when Celtics GM Brad Stevens shows up to scout Cruz. Stevens immediately takes a liking to Cruz, and in the final scene of the movie, it’s revealed that the Celtics are the ones to snag him. Then they dumped their surprise movie star from the back of their bench and went on to make the NBA Finals. Everything worked out really well for the Celtics here. They were 23-23 when Hernangómez left the team, but went on a 28-8 run to finish the season 51-31 and are now in the NBA Finals. Hernangómez began the 2021-22 season on the Celtics, so it was easy for the filmmakers to get footage of “Bo Cruz” playing in the NBA—they just filmed a Celtics game. The Orlando Magic center appears in the movie’s opening minutes as a prospect named Haas who plays for German club Alba Berlin—the team Wagner actually played for before coming to the United States. Sugerman doesn’t like what he sees, warning the Sixers to stay away from Haas due to a lack of work ethic and other negative personality traits. (Unlike Edwards, Wilts went to Kentucky—even in a highly dramatized fiction, the idea of a top draft pick out of the University of Georgia is really weird.) Edwards takes great pleasure in getting into Cruz’s head, and really sells the smirking glee his character gets from unnerving his opponent with various zings. So which NBA stars took to the silver screen—and which should stick to setting screens? The Professor from the And1 Mixtape Tour is in this movie. But Hustle will be particularly entertaining for die-hard NBA fans, due to its sheer immersion in the NBA world. In his new movie, Hustle, Sandler’s NBA costar is Jazz reserve Juancho Hernangómez, and the movie wraps with a scene at a Celtics-Sixers game that seems to be a season opener, or perhaps a preseason game.

Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah and a whole roster of notable professional basketball players star in Netflix's newly released sports drama Hustle, ...

What was your favorite song from the Hustle soundtrack? He goes behind his team’s back to recruit a virtual nobody off the street who happens to be extremely talented. Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah and a whole roster of notable professional basketball players star in Netflix’s newly released sports drama Hustle, which is now streaming on the platform.

Adam Sandler's new Netflix movie builds to a big moment for Stanley Sugerman and Bo Cruz. Here is how Hustle ends and what happens to the NBA.

This is due to the movie positioning Bo Cruz as one of the best prospects in the draft and the real-life Celtics most recently not having a high first-round pick. Kermit Wilks' workouts and on-court performance speak for themselves over the course of Hustle, which means he should have been drafted very high in this world as long as Bo getting the better of him in the final scrimmage did not hurt his stock too much. It seems that Hustle 2 will not happen or at least is not already in the planning stage. Throughout Bo Cruz's journey in Hustle, he repeatedly encounters fellow draft prospect Kermit Wilks, played by real NBA star Anthony Edwards. He's viewed as one of the best players in the draft class and believes he should be the first overall pick. The placement of Bo Cruz's tree tattoo is arguably the most meaningful piece. One of the big revelations in the Hustle movie ending is that Bo Cruz was drafted after his impressive final performance and went to the Boston Celtics. This is set up as then Boston Celtics head coach and current head of basketball operations Brad Stevens attends the scrimmage and likes what he sees. Back when Stanley was in college, he and Leon Rich were driving somewhere together and Stanley was behind the wheel. Just as Bo Cruz achieves his dream of playing in the NBA, Hustle's ending ends also gives Stanley Sugerman his big break. As the tree signifies his family, the phrase "Never back down" becomes important to Bo throughout the training process. Bo Cruz is shown participating in a shootaround with the rest of his teammates. Bo Cruz and Stanley Sugerman's quest is nearly derailed after a poor performance at a game, only for Bo's stock to rise thanks to an inventive viral challenge. This forces Stanley to quit the 76ers and train Bo full-time before the draft, teaching him how to have better concentration, hone various skills, and control his anger.

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

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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.

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. 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. 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. It casually clocks the rainbow of Lamborghinis outside an arena parking lot without going in for a belabored close-up. 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. 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.

By now you'd think you know what you're getting with an Adam Sandler sports movie.

But for a sport that has only occasionally been captured authentically by the movies, “Hustle” has genuine flow. "Hustle,” a Netflix release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for language. 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. “Hustle" is a more amiable film, less interested in prying into the underpinnings of the league. With each appearance, the distance between “Hustle” and the actual NBA grows increasingly small. 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.

The Netflix comedy-drama mines the star's obsession with the game, as well as his experiences in the entertainment industry.

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. 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. 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. “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. 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. 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.

Hustle is the newest film from Adam Sandler and as a sports-themed movie, it is packed with music but which songs feature in the soundtrack?

- Routineby Wale feat. - Philly, Phillyby Eve feat. - The Speed (2.0)by The Roots feat.

Adam Sandler's enduring love of the NBA is an affair which demands a court-side seat. Often spotted at games not far from fellow Knicks devotee Spike Lee, ...

The actor's leading role in the Safdie brothers' anxiety-inducing 2019 film Uncut Gems, which featured ‘The Big Ticket’ Kevin Garnett, played out against the backdrop of the NBA playoffs and circled around an audacious bet. Adam Sandler's enduring love of the NBA is an affair which demands a court-side seat. Often spotted at games not far from fellow Knicks devotee Spike Lee, Sandler is a lifelong fan even despite growing up surrounded by Boston Celtics lovers.

Travel-weary Philadelphia 76ers basketball scout Stanley Sugarman (Adam Sandler) thinks he's found the next big NBA star in Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez), ...

It means the end result doesn’t quite belong in the upper echelon of sports movies with the likes of Creed and Love & Basketball, but NBA fans in particular will be satisfied with the heart and talent on display. Director Jeremiah Zagar ensures that the love of the game and its culture is evident throughout, with cameos from Philly legends Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving and Allen Iverson lending the film authenticity. Dan Deacon’s electronic score is creative and suitably rousing at various points, and whether it’s on the streets or in indoor arenas, the crisp camerawork and smart editing captures basketball in all its beauty.

The actor, who has a $350m (£199m) deal with the streaming service, appears in Hustle, a sports drama in which he plays a basketball scout. Sandler's previous ...

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In Netflix movie Hustle, Adam Sandler portrays a scout for the NBA team Philadelphia 76ers – but is his character based on a real person?

Adam Sandler’s role in Hustle won’t come as a surprise as he’s known for his love of sport. No. Stanley Sugerman is portrayed by Adam Sandler, although his role as the basketball scout isn’t based on a real person. Hustle audiences are introduced to Stanley Sugerman as a down-on-his-luck scout for the Philadelphia 76ers.

In the drama, big-time basketball fan Sandler plays Stanley Sugerman, a down on his luck Philadelphia 76ers talent scout, who finds himself fighting to save his ...

The former NBA player began his coaching career in 1999 with the Orlando Magic and won Coach of the Year during his first season with the team. The eccentric Goldstein, known for his unique fashion sense, has never played basketball, but he’s a NBA legend in his own right. The “Big Serbian” is the first player Stanley meets in the opening scene of Hustle. He claims he’s 22 years old, the maximum age a player can be to enter the draft, and that a “big fire” destroyed his birth certificate. The two-time MVP and Rookie of the Year joined the Chicago Sky in 2021. Thybulle has played for the 76ers since entering the League in 2019 and has become known for his defensive prowess. In Stevens’ first year as president, the Celtics managed to make it to the 2022 NBA Finals. Known as the “ Round Mound of Rebound,” the former Phoenix Suns player was an 11-time All Star and was named the League’s MVP in 1993. The former Laker and commentator on Inside the NBA is one of Bo’s famous fans. The former Toronto Raptors star who helped Drake’s favorite NBA team win its first championship in 2019, shows up in the film to watch Bo hoop and throw a little shade. The problem is, Stanley seems to be the only one in Philly who believes the young athlete has the goods to make it in the NBA. On his journey, he runs into basketball icons, members of the current 76ers roster, and Anthony Edwards. No, not the actor who plays Goose in Top Gun, but the young star of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Viewers first see the Philadelphia 76ers legend slam dunking at the age of 63 in a viral video Stanley shows his teenage daughter. Not all of the current and former NBA stars in the film play themselves, which gives these guys a chance to really show off their acting skills.