Hustle (2022) Review:

Everyone loves a good underdog story. It’s been done many times over and it doesn’t always have to revolve around a singular character. Other times it circles around a team or entity, but mostly it is focused on a unique individual. A good example of this in the mainstream conscience is Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky (1976). Underestimated characters span across multiple actor credits and Adam Sandler is no stranger to such a concept either. Most people think of Sandler and his self-owned Happy Madison Productions always makes low brow humor movies. And yet, Sandler proves time and again he can make a compelling film with more than just that. He’s done in it in The Wedding Singer (1998), The Waterboy (1998), Hotel Transylvania (2012), and even Uncut Gems (2019). This movie however is about that but is not about him completely.

The narrative follows Stanley Sugarman (Adam Sandler) the spot guy for the 76ers basketball team. Wanting to move up and become a coach, he is tasked with finding one last promising talent. Unfortunately doing this job for several years has put strain on his wife Teresa (Queen Latifah) and daughter Alex (Jordan Hull). That is until he finds Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez) a diamond the rough coming from the ghettos of Spain. The issue is, Sugarman is under strict competition with his boss Vince Merrick (Ben Foster) with trying to get a new player. The screenplay was written by Taylor Materne in their first film credit, and Will Fetters of The Lucky One (2012) and A Star is Born (2018). Jeremiah Zagar as the director is also fairly new to the scene as well since majority of his credits are shorts or independent films.

The only thing that is a weak point to this feature is that the story is a familiar one to those have seen underdog films before. The main character is down on his luck and finds a path to redemption. And on that said path said character has to overcome various obstacles that may not be triumphed over the first time. There are set backs and moments of hopelessness, and then the final stretch where everything comes together. If a viewer is familiar enough to remember one, then this is not that different to another.  That doesn’t the mean the story is formulaic though. For one, the story revolves around Sandler’s role but the focus is put on Hernangómez’s character. It was like if in Rocky (1976), instead of focusing on Stallone’s role, it was aimed towards how Burgess Meredith’s character found Rocky.

The acting in every aspect is well done. Again for those who think Sandler only makes amateur comedy films, really should look at this or the others named earlier. Sandler still adds some bits of his usual humor to lighten up various scenes, but nothing gross or childish. The same could be said for Queen Latifah adding her own flair to the parts that she’s in. Even for Juancho Hernangómez who only has this film to his name was very believable. His relationship to his mother and daughter played a big part to his character and the emotion can be seen through the performance. This also adds good drama to the story because there were multiple risks involved that both Sugarman and Cruz take. That’s partly why the story feels deeper than that because there are pitfalls each character can get in to.

 As mentioned before though, there are moments where humor is injected to make sure the story isn’t always serious. There’s also a slew of basketball stars that appear throughout like Kenny Smith, Shaquille O'Neal and Charles Barkley. The camerawork was also very unique here, shot by Zak Mulligan. The shots shown are not wide angle but are close ups to show the skill involved with playing the sport of basketball like dribbling and passing. Mulligan doesn’t even have a lot of films people would recognize to his name. Finally, the music composed by Dan Deacon is a decent effort although there’s no available music that can be found. The score does have its moments of heart considering what is being put on screen. Deacon also doesn’t have too many mainstream film credits, but one of his most recent projects was Venom: The Last Dance (2024).

This is one of those Sandler films where the comedian shows that he is not just a goofy actor but also can play serious roles. The acting, music, cinematography and drama all work effectively. The only thing sort of on the downside is that it’s an underdog sports movie which there are many of.

Points Earned --> 8:10