Adam Sandler's basketball drama

   

    I don’t know how realistic Adam Sandler’s NBA movie Hustle is, but I suspect blistering authenticity wasn’t really the point.

    A variety of real NBA players add credibility to a story about a frustrated international scout (Sandler) who believes he has discovered the next big basketball thing. 

   Appearances by Kyle Lowry, Dr. J,  Trae Young, and others crop up like bold-faced names in a gossip column but the core of the movie revolves around the relationship between the hot-tempered  Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangomez) and Sandler’s Stanley Sugarman. 

   Before Stanley makes his big discovery, he's road-weary and frustrated. He thinks he's earned a spot as an assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers, a franchise that has employed him for 30 years. Team owner Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall) gives Stanley a long-awaited promotions but dies soon after making his promise.

   The late owner's bull-headed son (Ben Foster) reneges on the deal, sending a dejected Stanley back on the road. 

   While watching a playground game in Spain, Stanley finds Bo and arranges to bring him to the US.

  Director Jeremiah Zagar spends a fair amount of time showing how Stanley prepares the talented but undisciplined Bo for organized basketball at the highest level. Bo runs Philadelphia's hills, refines his footwork, and submits to Stanley's rigorous training regimen, which involves getting up at 4 a.m.   

    The supporting cast rounds out the story. Queen Latifah signs on as Stanley's mostly supportive wife and Jordan Hull plays his teenager daughter, a kid whose birthdays he always manages to miss because he's traveling.

    The best small roles belong to Minnesota Timberwolves' star Anthony Edwards, who plays Bo’s major on-court antagonist, and Kenny Smith, a former player turned TV commentator. Smith portrays a sports agent with enough juice to secure Bo a spot at the NBA draft combine.

   A bearded Sandler doesn't equal his work in 2029's Uncut Gems but proves effective as he benches his broad comedy impulses to play a decent guy who's trying to fulfill one last dream.  Hernangomez, who plays for the Utah Jazz, may not have discovered a second career but he holds his own.

  A sprinkling of back story dribbles through. As the story develops, we learn about Stanley's derailed shot at pro ball and single dad Bo's devotion to the young daughter (Ainhoa Pillett) he left in Spain with his mother (Maria Botto). 

   You'll probably out-guess many of the movie's moves. I don't know how much that matters. Available on Netflix and in selected theaters, Hustle plays its game well enough to merit a look.

   

A frenzied Adam Sandler in 'Uncut Gems'

The crazy world of a New York jewelry salesman -- and gambler.

Desperate and out-of-control, Howie Ratner -- the main character in Uncut Gems -- still manages to retain sparks of hope. He can't allow himself not to believe in the future. A long-shot basketball bet will pay off. The relationship with the woman he keeps in a Manhattan apartment won’t go haywire. At the same time, he’ll be able to maintain his Long Island family life.

Most of all, the raw opal Howie illegally purchased from Ethiopia will be the big one, the score that allows him to eliminate his gambling debts and find something resembling security.

But wait. I misspoke. Howie isn't interested in security. He's interested in wheeling and dealing. He wants to be a rainmaker and he tries to capitalize on anyone who holds promise, say an NBA star -- Kevin Garnett as himself -- who visits Howie’s Manhattan shop. Garnett falls in love with the opal, which Howie plans to sell at auction.

Suddenly, there’s another ball to juggle. How can Howie keep Garnett on the hook and also deliver the diamond to the auction house at a previously agreed upon time?

That's a plateful of story and the movie’s directors — the Safdie brothers (Josh and Benny) — needed the right actor to keep its wheels spinning. Turns out the right actor is Adam Sandler. Equipped with slightly protruding teeth and wearing a leather jacket, Sandler's Howie speeds through life like a man trying to skate across dangerously thin ice. He's loud and abrasive and it's not easy being around him. That's where Sandler's ability to transmit rays of hope proves useful.

We don't want to get too near to Howie, but we also can't look away. Maybe he's even dislikable enough for us to hope that he crashes. Is that the payoff we want from the movie or do we want to see Howie navigate dangerous waters and emerge whole?

The Safdies also introduce us to some of Howie’s unseemly associates, which include some very mean men to whom Howie owes a great deal of money. The movie could have been called Howie’s World.

Filming in free-wheeling style and making maximum use of New York City locations, the Safdies allow Howie's mix of anxiety and ambition to drive the story, offering some unexpected developments along the way. Far from being a bimbo, his mistress (Julia Fox) actually cares about Howie. Who’d have thought?

We also meet Howie's wife (Idina Menzel), a woman who long ago ran out of patience with her husband. Judd Hirsch portrays Howie's dad, offering a glimpse of the what could be read as the origin of Howie’s personality.

All of this takes place under the sharp eye of Darius Khondji's restless camera, which adds to the frenzy. The Sadies virtually dare us to keep pace.

Proceed at your own risk, but if you choose to stay home, you'll miss a movie about the latest in a long line of characters who dare to dream big -- even if they don't always have what it takes to make those dreams come true,.

The Internet made them do it

Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children grabs a techno tiger by the tail.

In Men, Women & Children, director Jason Reitman tries to latch onto something juicy and topical: the ways in which technology can push us apart rather than bringing us closer together.

Although hardly an astonishing insight, this caution about technology works its way into nearly every corner of Reitman's densely populated adaptation of a novel by Chad Kultgen.

Set in a Texas suburb, Men, Women & Children ups it creative ante by employing a large and talented cast, a bit of technological gimmickry (we read texts on the screen as characters type them) and a wry narration delivered by Emma Thompson , who's never seen on screen.

Thompson's narration offers an ironic reminder that the movie's collection of narrow, in-grown stories -- so feverishly important to most of its characters -- take place against a background of vast cosmic indifference.

That's an awfully grand reach for an essentially small movie that tends to focus on sexual relationships -- or the lack of them -- and which, one presumes, is intended as a snapshot of a contemporary reality in which we all are subject to distraction.

Tell me you've never been tempted to look at your phone while watching a movie or even during a face-to-face conversation with someone.

Following on the heels of Reitman's disappointing Labor Day, Men, Women & Children bounces from one story to another as if following links during an Internet browsing session.

The best of these stories involves a sexually dysfunctional family. Adam Sandler plays a husband who has substituted Internet porn and masturbation for a sex life with his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt).

As the story unfolds, Sandler's Don Truby seeks out (via the Internet, of course) a high-priced call girl. His wife, who very much wants to feel desired, uses an Internet site to arrange a sexual liaison with a stranger (Dennis Haysbert).

Meanwhile, the couple's teen-age son (Travis Tope) spends so much time with Internet porn, he can't respond sexually to the advances of a willing cheerleader (Olivia Crocicchia).
Crocicchia's Hannah has preoccupations of her own. Encouraged by a stage-managing mother (Judy Greer), Hannah's the star of a Web site created by her mom in hopes of establishing her daughter as a celebrity and an actress, probably in that order.

Hanna isn't the movie's only cheerleader. Allison (Elena Kampouris), also a cheerleader, visits pro-anorexia websites and engages in acts of self-sabotage, allowing herself to be used by a football player who doesn't give a damn about her.

To say that the plot further thickens doesn't quite do justice to Men, Women & Children's complexity: Dean Norris (who played Hank on Breaking Bad) appears as a father who's upset that his son (Ansel Elgort) has decided to quit playing football. The young man apparently has reached a point of familiar adolescent despair: He has concluded that life is meaningless.

Elgort's Tim becomes involved with Brandy (Kaitlyn Dever), the daughter of an obsessively over-protective mother (Jennifer Garner), who charts her daughter's every on-line move.

Amidst the story clutter, Reitman obtains some fine performances. A surprisingly effective Sandler channels his inner mope to play a guy of quiet dissatisfactions; DeWitt is fine as his frustrated wife; and watching Norris made me hope that he'll find his way into more movies.

A word more on DeWitt: In a late-picture scene, her character faces her husband at a pivotal moment in their relationship. Watch DeWitt's face. She manages one of the most emotionally shattered expressions I've seen in a movie.

Reitman, who also directed Juno, knows how to work with young actors, and the film's many teen-agers acquit themselves well.

Men, Women & Children seems intended as a cautionary tale. I don't think it has the sharpness and brio that has characterized Reitman's best work (Thank You for Smoking and Up in the Air, and not all of the movie's accumulated moments are as telling as must have been intended.

The subject of technological tyranny in ordinary lives isn't quite as compelling as the filmmakers may think, and Reitman, who co-wrote the screenplay with Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary) sometimes skim reads the movie's characters and situations.

Fair to say, I think, that Men, Women & Children doesn't always see deeply, but credit Reitman for trying to touch the sadness that seems to have descended on so many lives.

Adam Sandler's African journey

Blended mixes juvenile humor and cornball sentiment. Hard to digest.

In Blended, Adam Sandler manages to turn South Africa into a theme park full of animals, happy black South Africans and lots of adults who are trying to solidify relationships in newly formed families.

I've pretty much given up on Sandler's movies. For reasons that remain unknown to me, Sandler has a large enough following to keep him working. That makes it necessary to check in on him now and again.

Sandler comedies often attempt to leaven their calculated idiocy with mushy helpings of sentiment, sort of the equivalent of squirting an entire can of Reddi-wip directly down one's gullet in hopes of eliminating a bad taste.

That's pretty much the story here, lame gags followed by cornball fluff.

Despite the fact that Blended marks the third collaboration between Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, this duo has yet to enter the pantheon of great screen couples. It's unlikely -- at least I hope it is -- that clips from either the Wedding Singer or 50 First Dates will show up the next time someone decides to assemble a reel's worth of great screen couples.

In Blended, Sandler plays Jim, a widower with three daughters. Barrymore plays Lauren, a divorced woman who has two sons.

The movie opens with Jim and Lauren on a mismatched blind date at a Hooters (advertising). As a result of a tortured plot contrivance, they and their kids eventually are thrown together at the same South African resort. They're even forced to share a single suite.

Jim, who works for Dick's Sporting Goods (more advertising), is at a bit of a loss when it comes to raising daughters. He encourages his 15-year-old (Bella Thorn) to bulk up for varsity basketball. Jim is so sports-oriented that he named one of his daughters Espn, as in ESPN, which struck me less as a joke than a form of child abuse.

Lauren, who earns her living organizing closets, has difficulties with her hormone-driven older son (Braxton Beckham) and a tantrum-prone younger son (Kyle Red Silverstein) who can't hit a baseball.

Hmm. Maybe, just maybe, Jim and Lauren can get over their animosities, fall in love and help each other improve as parents. You think?

Anyway, the movie involves looking at animals, Lion King-style music, ostrich wrangling, and other bits like the one in which Shaquille O'Neal, as one of Jim's co-workers, jiggles his stomach muscles.

The humor, described in a Variety article as an attempt to go for "big physical laughs," is all pretty much covered in the movie's trailer.
Speaking of jiggles, Jessica Lowe plays the bust-shaking younger wife of a libidinous older husband (Kevin Nealon).

Blended isn't quite as painful as some the worst Sandler movies (Grown Ups or Big Daddy), and, at times, it tries to be sensitive about real parenting issues. If only it had tried to be a little bit sensitive about where its story is located. Here are two parents with an opportunity to teach their kids something about the world they're likely to inherit, and all they bequeath them are cheap laughs.