Hustle Review

Netflix bought the script from Legendary in 2020 when Adam Sandler signed on, and Sandler brought in Jeremiah Zagar after seeing his first fiction feature, We the Animals. Sandler plays Stanley Sugerman, a 76ers scout who lives out of hotels and wants to coach. In Spain he finds Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez, then an NBA forward), a construction worker with a temper and a gift, and brings him to Philadelphia over the objections of the owner's son now running the team.

Zagar and cinematographer Zak Mulligan shoot workouts and games with real players at real speed, and Philadelphia with affection, and the NBA faces, from Anthony Edwards as a trash-talking rival to a crowd of stars as themselves, feel like company rather than stunt casting. Sandler, softened and bone tired, gives Stanley the blend of weariness and resilience Owen Gleiberman praised, and his scenes with Queen Latifah as his wife are the warmest in the film.

Taylor Materne and Will Fetters' script runs the formula exactly, down to the training montage, and has little time for anyone beyond its two leads. It is the best-reviewed Happy Madison film on Rotten Tomatoes, at 94 percent, and it earned Sandler his first Screen Actors Guild nomination.