Butler's Cinema Scene

“HUSTLE” My rating: B- (Netflix)

117 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Even Adam Sandler haters should have a good time with “Hustle,” a warm-hearted sports drama that taps into the acting chops Sandler demonstrated in “Uncut Gems” without the attendant angst and anger.

Sandler plays Stanley Sugarman, a globe-trotting scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. A former college player who screwed up his hand in a car accident, Stanley worships the game of basketball. But years of nearly nonstop travel checking out far-flung potential players have taken their toll…Stanley has spent a big chunk off his life away from his wife (Queen Latifah) and tweener daughter (Jordan Hull).

And then there’s his unfulfilled ambition to become a coach. The team’s aged owner (Robert Duvall) is amendable, but his dickish son and heir (Ben Foster, at his dickishest) wants to keep Stanley exactly where he is. This arrogant tool doesn’t care if Stanley always misses his kid’s birthday parties.

Taylor Materne and Will Fetters’ screenplay centers on Stanley’s discovery in Spain of towering amateur player Bo Cruz (real-life NBA pro Juancho Hernangomez), who shows up on the public courts wearing clunky work boots and humiliates all comers.

“It’s as if Scottie Pippen and a wolf had a baby,” Stanley marvels.

On his own dime Stanley brings Bo back to the States, only to find that his bosses don’t see the same potential he does. The plot has Stanley underwriting Bo’s total-immersion training regimen in preparation for an appearance at the NBA draft combine, where hopeful players get to strut their stuff before team owners and coaches.

“Hustle” is packed to the gills with sport-flick cliches. There’s coach/player bonding, an extended (too extended, in fact) training montage, and the usual roadblocks that threaten to derail Bo’s journey to the pros.

But under Jeremiah Zagars’ direction and thanks to a supporting cast of real-life NBA legends (Julius Erving, Allen Iverson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal — it’s like a sports-themed edition of “Where’s Waldo”), “Hustle” feels authentically lived in.

Indeed, one gets the impression that everyone involved in this project absolutely loves the game, and that affection wraps the enterprise in a warm glow.

The seriocomic interplay between Sandler’s and Hernangomez’s characters feels absolutely authentic…maybe Hernangomez is just playing himself, but he seems utterly at ease in front of the camera.

The result is two hours of feel-good that goes down easily. For basketball fans the whole experience should prove borderline orgasmic.

| Robert W. Butler