Some of our best sports movies feature fictional players and teams, from Roy Hobbs and the New York Knights in “The Natural” to Reggie Dunlop’s Charlestown Chiefs in “Slap Shot” to Phil Elliot playing wide receiver for the North Dallas Bulls in “North Dallas Forty.” Great movies, one and all — but when sports films combine fictional characters with real-life players and coaches, and we don’t have fake teams a la the Miami Sharks (“Any Given Sunday”) or the Western University Dolphins (“Blue Chips”), that verisimilitude often gives the story an extra shot layer of authenticity and immediacy.
Such is the case with the latest Adam Sandler/Netflix film — wait, come back, this isn’t some throwaway nonsense on the order of “The Ridiculous 6” or “Hubie Halloween,” this is the Adam Sandler we respect and admire, the Adam Sandler of “The Meyerowitz Stories” and “Uncut Gems”! In director Jeremiah Zagar’s savvy basketball drama “Hustle,” Sandler delivers one of his most endearing performances as Stanley Sugarman, a former college hoopster and longtime scout for the Philadelphia 76ers who has been sent on a global mission to find the next Luka Doncic, the next Giannis Antetokounmpo — or face possible extinction.
