Hustle ★★★

Jeremiah Zagar

Starring Adam Sandler, Juancho Hernangomez, Queen Latifah, Robert Duvall, Ben Foster

Shooting its shot as it bounces on to Netflix, Hustle is the most recent collaboration from the streaming giant and once-comedy star Adam Sandler now turned dramatic leading man. After the critical success of Uncut Gems and The Meyerowitz Stories, Sandler now plays Stanley Sugerman, a basketball scout looking for a once-in-a-lifetime player to come and play in the NBA.

With an opening montage that the NBA would be proud of, we're introduced to Stanley's repetitive career, that isn't going quite as smoothly as he'd like. With wife Teresa (Queen Latifah) figuratively by his side, he sets off once more to find a young talent who would be good enough to shoot hoops in the big leagues. He finds it in construction worker Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangomez), a young father with little professional basketball experience.

There's a genuine love for basketball throughout the movie, with many of the supporting cast being basketball stars past and present. Adam Sandler is great in the role, in a dialled back, more subtle performance. But where the film falters is in its predictability. It's formulaic and fails to do anything different with the usual sports movie genre.

Although it doesn't do anything against the grain, Hustle keeps an audience gripped for the most part and finds moments for heartwarming chemistry; it won't break records, but is a nice addition to the Netflix catalogue.

Hustle available now on Netflix