Former Saturday Night Live star Adam Sandler is taking on a dramatic role in his next Netflix movie Hustle. He plays a down-and-out basketball scout who discovers an amateur player in Spain, Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez). The movie, mostly filmed in Philadelphia (go Sixers!), is produced by Sandler and real-life NBA star LeBron James.
Rapper-turned-actress Queen Latifah (The Equalizer) plays the wife of Sandler’s character Stanley Beren.
Hollywood legend Robert Duvall (The Godfather, The Apostle, Apocalypse Now), 91, who knows how to play one-on-one as seen in The Great Santini, stars, too. Duvall played military dad Bull, who becomes abusive after his son Ben (Michael O’Keefe) beats him in a basketball game. See “Mama’s Boy” clip below.
Both actors, Duvall and O’Keefe, were nominated for Oscars for their performances in the 1979 movie The Great Santini, which was based on Pat Conroy’s novel. (Robert De Niro won for Raging Bull; Timothy Hutton for Ordinary People.) Blythe Danner played the wife/mother.
Parodies of and references to the memorable father-son basketball match have been including in several Hollywood movies including Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (see Mike Myers and Rob Lowe above), among others.
Hustle will be released on June 10 on Netflix.
P.S. Get ready to see more of Duvall: He’s currently filming The Ploughmen, written and directed by fellow Oscar winner Ed Harris (Pollock, Apollo 13, The Truman Show). Duvall plays “a notorious old murderer.”
