A Philly Sports Fan’s Review Of “Hustle”

I’m making it abundantly clear right now that there WILL be spoilers in this review, so if you have plan on seeing it but still haven’t, come back to this when you have.

 

Now, for the super cool people that HAVE seen this movie, welcome. This is not going to be your usual movie review you’d see on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes, because truth be told, I’m not a huge movie guy. Therefore, I don’t know the first thing about reviewing movies, or the intricacies of what makes a movie “good.” If a movie has a good plot and good acting I’ll usually say that it was a good movie.

 

That’s how I feel about this movie. As far as sports movies go, this was extremely solid. This didn’t feel ultra sappy or overly cringey, like some sports movies can tend to be. I think that because seemingly every basketball player in the movie was an NBA player or legitimate basketball player in real life, it added a sense of realism to Hustle that hasn’t been touched by any other sports movie.

 

I still don’t feel totally comfortable with Adam Sandler being in a role where he’s serious for 95% of the movie, but his acting was pretty stellar in this movie. He also provided some witty one-liners that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from him, so I guess he wasn’t completely serious the whole time.

 

But you didn’t click on this article to read my thoughts about this movie. Nay, you came to this hoping that I viewed this movie from the painful eyes of a Sixers fan. Well, you’re absolutely in luck. Without further adieu, let’s get into the things that made me ironically chuckle at the hands of Philly and the Sixers.

 

(This is yet another reminder that there will be spoilers below this sentence)

 

The Sixers Were Just As Dumb In An Alternate Reality

 

Out of anything in this movie, the Sixers were the most accurately portrayed. From the foolish front office all the way down to Tobias Harris getting cooked defensively in a one-on-one situation, it seemed as if Adam Sandler was keenly aware of the incompetence of the real Sixers.

 

In one of the first scenes of the movie, Sandler is in a scout’s meeting where they’re discussing prospects for the upcoming draft. After a debate with another scout, who just so happens to be the son of the Sixers owner in the movie, the son ends up getting his way and they end up taking a player with blatant flaws. Nothing like some good ole nepotism to ruin the direction of the Sixers franchise. Does that ring a Colangelo-sized bell, anyone?

 

Then, a few scenes later, Kenny Smith (who plays a sports agent in this movie) blatantly says that he thinks the Sixers will trade Joel Embiid to move up in the draft. He said that with a straight face. Fictitious scenario or not, what kind of asinine world were they living in that Embiid was worth trading to move up a few spots in the draft? After this was said, I audibly said WHAT and paused the movie for a second to regather myself. I thought, just for a split second, about turning it off.

 

 

Eventually, they get to the point in the movie where the owner pisses off the best scout the Sixers have (Sandler) so much that he quits after he spoon feeds them a great prospect no one else has heard of. Naturally, after he was fired, he turns Bo Cruz** into the tall white version of Michael Jordan.

 

**(Sidenote, Bo Cruz is played by current NBA player Juancho Hernangomez, who I thought was spectacular despite having never acted in his life. My main question with this is how the hell did he have time to film this when he played for THREE NBA teams this season???)**

 

A prospect that was in their own building, with the advantage of being the only ones to know about him, so they could take him literally anywhere in the draft and the owner is just like, “lol no.” The incompetency is too perfect.

 

Then, in the most painfully realistic situation, the prospect that the Sixers could have easily chosen ends up being taken by the CELTICS. Especially when you factor in the tweet below, this just feels like a personal attack on Sixers fans. What a brutal twist of the knife.

 

 

Well played, Sandler, well played.

 

Hustle’s Relationship With Philly

 

As far as movies based in Philadelphia go, I actually don’t think that this movie sucked the proverbial weiner of Philly like some other movies have in the past. To me, that’s a great thing. As a city, there’s nothing we hate more than a phoney. We can smell tourists from a mile away, and most of the time it makes me cringe when people try to pander to us.

 

There wasn’t a ton of that, in all honesty. Other than some subtle nods to Wawa and Federal Donuts among other things, you knew the movie was in Philly but they didn’t shove it down your throats too much. Whereas some other movies will absolutely jam Geno’s and Pat’s cheesesteaks up your ass to really hammer home the fact that the movie is based in Philly, there was none of that in Hustle.

 

In fact, the only reference to cheesesteaks in this movie was when Bo Cruz ordered five cheesesteaks to his hotel room and took exactly one bite out of each of them. If you’re gonna do a taste-testing tour extravaganza, that’s the way to do it in my eyes. Take one wonderful bite and then move onto the next. He’s training for the NBA Draft folks, he can’t be clogging his arteries before nailing threes in Adam Sandler’s face.

 

The only pandering to Philly in this movie that made me want to gouge my eyes out with two rusty forks is the inevitable, “main character pretends to be like Rocky” scene that exists in every single Philly-based movie made since the 70s. The worst part of it was he did this after running up some random set of stairs in what I guess would be like, Manayunk or something, and then did the fake fighting thing at the top of those steps. Candidly, could have done without that.

 

Also, I’m not sure if this is pandering to Philly or just to basketball in general, but holy hell how awkward was that Allen Iverson “practice” video? For those that may not have remembered, it was really quick during the montage of messages Cruz was getting in response to him swatting the shit out of everyone on social media. I tried to find a video clip but I couldn’t, sorry folks.

 

One thing I did enjoy, however, was that they got Anthony Gargano a role as a member of the Philly media in the movie. Known as “The Cuz” on the 97.5 The Fanatic Midday show, Gargano has talked multiple times about his love for the movie industry, so it was cool to see him in the movie. It was also nice that they got a real member of the Philly media to portray Philly media, instead of some Hollywood schmuck that probably would have done his best to act like an asswipe.

 

All-in-all, as far as typical Philly-based movies go, the cringey pandering to the city was pretty tame in this one.

 

Sandler’s Comments on Philly Fans & The Sixers

 

I thought the two comments Sandler made about Philly fans were actually pretty funny. While they may have originally been written to be a sort of “diss” to Philly fans and our nature as a “tough” fan base, I happened to think the jokes were subtle and well-placed.

 

 

 

While I wouldn’t go as far as to say we are the “worst” fans in the world (Cowboys fans and Boston still exist unfortunately), I do appreciate the follow-up to him calling us the worst by saying that’s what makes us the best.

 

In a very real sense, he’s right about that. We know who we are, and we’ve never shied away from it. Yeah, we’ll get on our athletes more than some other average city would, but that’s just because we actually give a shit about our teams. As much as we’ll get on them, we’re also the first ones to shower them with love when they’re doing well. So yeah, Mr. Adam Sandler, that is what makes us the best. Thanks for noticing <3.

 

With that being said, you can’t be a die hard Knicks fan like Sandler claims to be and then turn around and say “I did always like the Sixers.” That’s a violation. We never expected, or wanted, you to be a Sixers guy. I’ll tell you this much, no self-righteous Sixers fan would ever say that he also secretly admired that abomination of a team that plays in Madison Square Garden.

 

 

By Matt Szczypiorski | June 14, 2022
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