BEFORE: OK, will probably post late tonight because we're going out to dinner, the animator who I'm entering film festivals for invited us over, so that means a subway trip into Manhattan, and probably the first time over to another person's house for dinner since the start of the pandemic. This is a thing that people used to do, right? Just invite each other over to eat and chat? Seems like so long ago that we did anything like that, unless you count our vacation in October where we visited my sister in North Carolina. Changing habits is still going to take some time...
Ben Foster carries over again from "The Contractor".
THE PLOT: A basketball scout discovers a phenomenal street ball player while in Spain and sees the prospect as his opportunity to get back into the NBA.
AFTER: Well, the dinner went well, good food and good conversation. I did well with relating the story behind "Narrowsburg", about the scammy film festival that took place upstate a few years back. Filmmakers naturally find this to be an interesting tale, and then they start to wonder how many other film festivals out there are legit, and how many aren't. The animator's partner is also a filmmaker, a documentary filmmaker, so there was plenty to talk about, he grew up near Rye Playland in Westchester county so I was able to also recommend "Class Action Park" to him.
As for "Hustle", I was sort of at a loss here because I know next to nothing about basketball. There are a ton of real NBA players in the film, past and present, but I only recognized a few of them, like Nowitzki and Iverson and of course Shaq and Barkley - I recognized Boban Marjanovic, but only because he's in a Cheez-Its commercial now, not from his time on the court.
Other than that, I was kind of flying blind, I didn't know what the "Combine" was or how it related to the NBA draft, or even that 22 was the maximum age for the NBA draft. OK, learning time tonight - but essentially, isn't EVERY sports movie the same? From "Rocky" to "The Karate Kid", it's all the same narrative, right? You need an underdog to root for, there's a training montage, and your guy or team wins in the end, or at least they go the distance. The only exception I think is "The Bad News Bears", but at least they learned something about themselves by losing.
Despite the fact that this is an obvious formula, I enjoyed this film - the rough, untrained basketball player from Spain was the likable underdog, but Adam Sandler's character was also a likable underdog, somebody who wants to be a basketball coach but can never quite get there, because he's too valuable to the '76ers as a scout. Nobody can possibly do as good of a job as he does assessing the players in other countries, or in the hidden corners of America, so he's on the road most of the time. Then when he finally gets a break and the team's owner gives him a coaching job, things are looking up - until that guy dies and his son takes charge of the team, so it's back out on the road.
So the real rivalry is between the basketball scout and the new team owner, however Stanley Sugerman (a former basketball player himself, although Sandler honestly seems a bit too short for that...) feels that he's found the newest and tallest player with incredible potential by accident in Spain, and if he could convince Bo Cruz to trust him and come try out in America, he could ride the new reputation as the guy who discovered the next NBA phenomenon. Thankfully, Cruz is struggling to make ends meet in a construction job, and if he were to come to America and qualify for the draft, even making the league minimum would be a substantial windfall for him.
It's believable, because the actor playing Bo Cruz is a real professional NBA player from Spain, who was drafted by the Timberwolves but has also played for the Celtics, Spurs and Jazz.
Problems arise when the team owner disagrees with his scout's decisions, and a tryout that ends in disaster is about to force Sugerman back out on the road, when he decides to quit instead and train Cruz on his own, to get him ready for the Combine, which apparently is a real thing that takes place every May, ahead of the NBA draft in June, where college players are put through various athletic tests and shooting drills, and play five-on-five games for all the scouts, GMs and coaches in the NBA. Leading up to this is what may be the longest "training montage" in film history - seriously it could be up to 15 minutes here, I'm not sure, and by the end of that, man, I sure was exhausted. We get it, already, training is hard - I'd call this overkill but yeah, condensing three weeks of training down to 15 minutes probably was an editing challenge.
However, news of a previous assault charge in Spain derails the plans to attend the Combine, but then hope is restored once Sugerman harnesses the power of social media to create "the Boa Challenge", where random people try to win a game of one-on-one against Cruz, and of course everyone in the audience has a phone, so news about the skills of the newcomer soon spreads, and fans all over start asking why he's not in the Combine or the draft. OK, well, we got that sorted, didn't we? Now all Cruz has to do is play the drills and not react to any trash-talk from his opponents. Easier said than done, though?
What felt less believable here was the relationship stuff, I don't know why they'd cast Queen Latifah as the wife of Adam Sandler's character, there's just no way. For several reasons that I won't even get into here, but she's way out of his league, especially if he's playing a perennial loser character. Instead it feels a lot like those Christmas commercials that want to cast inter-racial couples just to prove how non-racist they are, or to appeal to twice as many people and essentially hedge their bets. Sorry to be so cynical, but that's how I see it.
This movie is in contention for the 2022 Oscar race, and I haven't seen too many films yet that are. My boss gets all the announcements about AMPAS eligible films screening around NYC, but unless they're animated, he can't afford to spend time seeing them. I think he went to see the "Avatar" sequel yesterday, and he saw the animated features like "Pinocchio", "The Sea Beast" and "Wendell & Wild". I've got only a few opportunities to see eligible films myself before my February romance chain starts, and unfortunately I've got to be really selective. So I think this month I'll be able to get to "Glass Onion", "Wendell & Wild", and "Blonde", but I think that's all I'll have time for. Wait, next week I want to watch "Everything Everywhere All at Once", is that going to be up for anything? I'm not even sure. With the nominations due on January 24, I simply won't have time after that to program anything, so I'll really have to guess blindly. My bes category will probably be Best Animated Feature, because last year I did manage to watch "Lightyear", "The Bad Guys" and "The Bob's Burgers Movie", and I think I can also get to "Turning Red" next weekend, so we'll see.
Also starring Adam Sandler (last seen in "Hubie Halloween"), Queen Latifah (last seen in "Sphere"), Juancho Hernangomez, Kenny Smith, Anthony Devante Edwards, Robert Duvall (last seen in "The Handmaid's Tale"), Jordan Hull, Maria Botto (last seen in "My Life in Ruins"), Ainhoa Pillet, Raul Castillo (last seen in "Knives Out"), Heidi Gardner (last seen in "Otherhood"), Jaleel White (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Elvin Rodriguez, Moe Wagner, Boban Marjanovic, Michael Foster Jr., Julius Erving,
with cameos from Matisse Thybulle, Tobias Harris, Kyle Lowry, Tyrese Maxey, Seth Curry, Doc Rivers, Dirk Nowitzki, Brad Stevens, Jay Wright, Jordan Clarkson, Trae Young, Aaron Gordon, Mark Jackson, Allen Iverson, Luka Doncic, Tim Young, Fat Joe (last seen in "Night School"), Mike James, Leandro Barbosa, James Goldstein, Aaron Owens, Lonnie Harrell, Larry Williams, Waliyy Dixon, Grayson Boucher, Ty Tanner, Chris "Lethal Shooter" Williams, Mark Cuban (last seen in "The Clapper"), Emeka Okafor, Bill Duffy, Jeff Schwartz, Pat Croce, Mo Cheeks, Kristine Leahy, Aaron McKie, Howard Wood, Fran Fraschilla, Khris Middleton, Greg St. Jean, Lonnie Cooper, Beanie Sigel, Tierra Whack, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal (also last seen in "Hubie Halloween"), Dan Patrick (ditto), Ernie Johnson.
RATING: 7 out of 10 cheesesteaks (from different restaurants)
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