‘Hustle’ Review: In His First Major Role Since ‘Uncut Gems,’ Adam Sandler Scores in a Rousing Basketball Drama
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticYears before “Uncut Gems,” you could see Adam Sandler was a good actor. He’d taken a step out of the ha-ha zone as early as “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002) — and going back as far as “The Wedding Singer” (1998), which he made after only two of his knockabout big-hit farces (“Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore”), he was already displaying the desire to add a splash of real-world nuance to his comic antics.
And let’s not be snobbish about it: It’s not as if Sandler, in his way, didn’t give a helluva performance in “The Waterboy” (the greatest of his stupido/smart “classics”).
That said, his performance in “Uncut Gems” as an addled, self-destructive spieler-chiseler-gambler who works in New York’s Diamond District felt cut from a different gem — it belonged in a Scorsese movie.
It was, to me, the best performance of 2019, and from that moment on it was no longer quite accurate to say Adam Sandler was a good actor.
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