Years before “Uncut Gems,” you could see Adam Sandler was a good actor. He’d taken a step out of the ha-ha zone as early as “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002) — and going back …
was a good actor. He’d taken a step out of the ha-ha zone as early as “Punch-Drunk Love” — and going back as far as “The Wedding Singer” , which he made after only two of his knockabout big-hit farces , he was already displaying the desire to add a splash of real-world nuance to his comic antics. And let’s not be snobbish about it: It’s not as if Sandler, in his way, didn’t give a helluva performance in “The Waterboy” .
Swathed in a mopey dark beard that brings out the gawkiness of his grin, he plays Stanley Sugarman, a veteran scout for the Philadelphia 76ers who still loves the game but is literally sick and tired of his life on the road, jetting around the world to look for the next breakout hoops star. Stanley gets put up in five-star hotels, but they all blend together, and whatever country he’s in he ODs on American junk food.
One night in Spain, he wanders over to a street court thronged with spectators. Most of them are there to watch Bo Cruz , a towering construction worker who plays defense like a speeding wall and dunks like a hydraulic drill. Within minutes, Stanley knows that he’s found a superstar-in-the-rough.
“Hustle” is a buddy drama built around the slow-growing bond between Stanley the mouthy mensch and Bo the brooding, taciturn hoops-wizard-in-a-strange-land. At different points, it may remind you of sports movies from the formulaic Jon Hamm rouser “Million Dollar Arm” to “Jerry Maguire.” When Stanley trains Bo by having him jog, day after day, up a residential hill in Philly, the movie even nods to “Rocky.
Yet “Hustle” has its own squarely satisfying and, at moments, enthralling texture. There’s plenty of basketball, but there is no big game and, in fact, no team-vs.-team game — it’s all workouts and tryouts and the showcase basketball decathlon known as the NBA Draft Combine, which the director, Jeremiah Zagar, shoots with invigorating verve and skill.