"Hustle": a review of "Breaking Through in the NBA" with Adam Sandler
An inspiring Netflix sports drama about basketball and the undying faith in yourself.
Basketball scout Stanley Sugerman (Sandler) gets a chance to be an assistant coach for his hometown team in Philadelphia. The club's new owner desperately needs fresh blood, so Sugerman reluctantly returns to his usual activities. Suddenly he finds amateur player Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangomez) on the streets of Spain. The guy has phenomenal skills, and Stanley decides to get him a place in the national league.
There are anecdotal legends about Adam Sandler's film career. They are, however, still not enough to record how unexpectedly high quality his acting decisions are sometimes. Sandler's new project, Breaking Through in the NBA (in the original Hustle, or "wrestling for the ball"), launches the comedian into the territory of his beloved basketball, which is pointless to talk about without respect. Adam is a big fan of the game, and can often be spotted on city courts bouncing happily despite his short stature. This time, his childlike adoration helped him avoid failure and deliver a surprisingly dignified drama about overcoming himself and his past circumstances.
Stanley Sugerman once had success and recognition in the NBA, but after an accident (a drunk driving accident) and the forfeiture of a championship for the Philadelphia 76ers, the ball had to be forgotten. However, the hero doesn't seem to be complaining about life: there is a supportive wife T (the unfailingly charismatic Queen Latifah) and a daughter with directorial ambitions, money, the respect of basketball club owner Rex Merrick (a one-minute cameo by living legend Robert Duvall). After Merrick's sudden death, management of the team passes to his unpleasant son Rex, visibly turned against Sugerman. Despite his gift of an assistant coaching position before his death, the younger Merrick forces Stanley to return to the path in which he has worked all these past years: scouting young basketball talents.
"What kind of dream does a man in his 50s have? All he has is nightmares and eczema," Sugerman joked darkly to his wife. Stanley's aspirations are almost nonexistent, a gnawing grudge against himself for his untapped potential and drunken youth has shrouded an already distant horizon with a deathbed. Sugerman lives on airplanes, eats at KFC, screens promising players, but it's all wrong: Those with lame gears, those trying to pass as 22-year-olds, those with no legs or too much conceit. After parting ways with the next candidate, Sugerman finds himself at a busy "box" in Spain, where the endlessly tall and almost speechless Bo Cruz is beating the gawkers for money, letting almost no one near the basketball hoop. Stanley realizes that the chances of spotting such a shot are slim to none, and promptly suggests that Cruz come to the show (while also realizing his own benefit).
A former soccer player, 22-year-old Beau lives with his mother and is raising his daughter in a dysfunctional ghetto. Expectedly cautiously, he accepts an offer to prove himself in the NBA, but he has little hope. Cruz has been tried for assault in the past, something the team only learns about when he arrives. Having gained pariah status from the start, Bo wants to give up - which is to the advantage of Sugerman, who believes that only through grueling training do they become legends, achieve heights and multimillion-dollar contracts. The entire second act of the film essentially consists of all sorts of gluts: running uphill, concentration, learning not to react to your opponents' insults, and other routines without which real champions are not forged. From these, dramaturgically, the authors flow smoothly into a finale that is logical for such sports stories, full of adrenaline and gratitude for everything.
"Breaking Through in the NBA" director Jeremiah Zagar ("We Are Animals"), with the help of screenwriter Will Fetters ("Remember Me"), seamlessly brings all genre elements together, moderately plays on emotion and does not let manipulation overshadow what is happening on set and in the characters' lives. The picture itself is a commercial, good-quality complement to Steven Soderbergh's "Highflying Bird" from the same Netflix and the HBO series "Time to Win." Sandler rightly gives away one of the brilliant roles on the film's resume after "Love Knocked Down" and "Uncut Diamonds." Sugerman's type and experiences have been on display many times in similar, often monotonous movies, but it's Sandler who manages to make Stanley a humanized coach with shattered and then restored desires instead of a walking caricature in a suit.
In his debut role as Bo Cruz, Juancho Hernangomez comes across as stunningly natural, unspoken and emotional. Performing in real life for the Utah Jazz Club, he was able to reflect on personal experiences and create a convincingly moving portrait of a street dreamer, perform as an equal in tandem with Sandler and even outplay him.
"Breaking Through in the NBA" is full of cameos by basketball legends, including Shaq O'Neal, but they're all just entourage, while the heart of the film remains the heartwarming, sober and often funny story of men who also cry but keep resisting the reality around them. It suggests appreciating a world where all conflicts are solvable with a ball and inner demons are ultimately powerless, because you are unkillable, dare to dream on.
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