Hustle (2004) (TV)

User Rating:

4.2/10   

Director:

Peter Bogdanovich

Writer (WGA):

Christian Darren (written by)

Release Date:

25 September 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Sport

Tagline:

Because winning was everything... he lost it all.

Plot:

An addiction to gambling dims baseball legend Pete Rose's star. |

Plot Keywords:

Gambling | Baseball | Gambling Addiction | 1980s | No Nudity

Cast

Tom Sizemore	...	Pete Rose
Dash Mihok	...	Paul Janszen
George DiCenzo	...	Bartlett Giamatti
Melissa DiMarco	...	Carol Rose
Sarain Boylan	...	Katarina Grant
Paulino Nunes	...	Don Stenger
Paul Fauteux	...	Tommy Gioiosa
Carlos Diaz	...	Mike Bertollini
Richard M. Davidson
Alex Karzis	...	Ron Delaplane
Jayne Eastwood	...	Marge Schott
Devon Bostick	...	The Kid
Joe Bostick	...	Limo Driver
Melanie Marden	...	Annie #1
Kim Allan	...	Annie #2

Also Known As:

Hu$tle (USA) (promotional title)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Orly Adelson Productions

Sad but Shallow

Spoilers: ESPN really over-hyped this rather boring movie. Tom Sizemore is a great actor, but he really seems to play the part of Pete Rose as if he was trying to hard to "move" like Pete Rose. Only people who watched baseball in the 1970s and the 1980s saw Pete Rose frequently on television (or in person) as a baseball player. I grew up in that era, and I remember Rose had a certain posture, and he used to tilt his head a certain way, and he spoke very directly. Tom Sizemore seems to be mimicking Rose too much. Sizemore adopts a posture and walking style that seems to be more like Jay Leno pretending to be Pete Rose. Sizemore is not very convincing as Pete Rose, but it is not all his fault. The movie really does not spend any time answering the question: "Who was the real Pete Rose?" Why did he become such a gambling junkie? Did he have emotional problems? Was it matrimonial problems? There are some scenes in HUSTLE that show that his wife used to go out at night partying by herself, but this issue is never explored. Was she being unfaithful? Did Rose know? Did he care? In HUSTLE, Rose (Sizemore) claims that he is away from home half the year and cheats on his wife regularly, but once again that is just a line of dialogue. Did his own cheating bother him? Was his family life a source of stress or support? How did his marriage affect his gambling and Baseball career? What was Pete's relationship with his kids?

Aside from the personal issues that were largely ignored, nothing is really shown regarding Pete Rose as a Legendary Baseball Player. At the end of the movie, when Rose meets with the Baseball Commissioners (and lies to them) they treat him with a lot of respect, but what about Rose and all of his Hall of Fame colleagues? Where are all of the great Hall of Fame Players that knew Pete? How did Pete's fellow players affect his career and his life? How did Pete affect all the people that he dealt with? What did Baseball mean to Pete Rose? How far gone was Rose when he went so low that he bet on Baseball, and on his own team? These issues are never explored.

Also pretty much ignored is one of the most important questions. How much gambling did Pete Rose really do? Was he losing thousands of dollars, or did he lose Millions of Dollars? Were there Organized Crime figures who helped bring down Rose because he owed them money? Did Pete really have money problems? Why didn't Pete pay his friend/bookie the $30,000. that he owed this guy? Money problems are alleged, yet Pete is always living in a giant mansion with his wife, and even at the end when he is suspended, he and his wife are planning trips to Europe. It seems like this movie's screenplay was written with some of the most important facts being left out.

The theme of HUSTLE was to show what a superficial low-life Pete Rose was. This basic issue is illustrated relentlessly. Rose used his friends, he lied to everyone, and he never really felt any remorse about anything. Unfortunately, because of who Pete Rose was, and all the great Baseball players that he interacted with, it seems like no movie could have really done a credible job unless it had more substance and was much longer. There was so much substance missing from this movie that it just seemed very trite. All of the scenes primarily concentrated on the fact that Pete Rose spent every day as a coach sitting in his Clubhouse preparing his betting order for each day. HUSTLE wanted to make sure it was clear that Pete Rose bet on baseball, and that he spent a lot of his baseball Manager career filling out betting slips instead of helping his players and coaches. That was basically all that HUSTLE was about. HUSTLE misses everything that would have made this movie great. It never gets inside the mind of Pete Rose. It never shows the soul or the heart of Pete Rose. It never even shows real Pete Rose who was a Legendary Baseball Player in the 1980s era. Instead, all we see is Tom Sizemore doing a Jay Leno impersonation. HUSTLE will disappoint anyone who was hoping to see a comprehensive movie which dealt with the fall of a Legendary baseball player who became a sleazy, very creepy gambling junkie.