Cinema Tuesdays Review

Hustle
By Nathan Cone

With baseball facing a potential wide-reaching steroids scandal that is casting a cloud over the 2005 season, let’s look back to the 1980s, when the game’s big scandal centered on one man, Pete Rose. The made-for-television movie “Hustle” stars Tom Sizemore, an actor who himself has had a few problems with the law as of late, as the former Cincinnati Reds player and manager. "Hustle" depicts Rose as a man consumed by his passion for gambling.

There’s something fascinating about made-for-television movies. They can be dreadfully bad, yet still hold your attention. “Hustle,” directed by one-time wunderkind Peter Bogdanovich, isn’t awful, but it isn’t Major League quality, either.

Rose’s saga is one of the saddest stories of the game. With 4,256 career hits, Rose was a sure bet to be inducted into the Hall of Fame someday when he was busted for violating Major League Rule 21 by gambling on the very sport where he spent years as a player and manager. Until recently, Rose denied ever betting on baseball, and in a 2004 interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson included as a bonus feature on the DVD of "Hustle," Rose still says he never placed bets from the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse, though phone records and betting slips in his handwriting seem to indicate otherwise.

"Hustle" opens in the mid-1980s, and we see that Rose has begun to associate with a motley crew, including a drugged-out Tommy Gioiosa and the meek, clingy Paul Janszen. As his obsession with gambling grows, so does his reliance on Janszen, who's the middleman between Rose and various bookies. Actor Dash Mihok is wooden as Janszen, and only starts emoting once his character is busted for selling drugs to pay off Rose's debts. As Rose, Tom Sizemore mostly chuckles a lot, tells his wife that gambling is just something he really loves, and reminds everyone else around him how "everyone loves a winner."

Besides the interview with Gibson, there are many other snippets of archive footage and interviews included on the DVD of "Hustle," including the August 24, 1989 statement from A. Bartlett Giamatti that banished Rose from Major League Baseball. There are older interviews with Rose, and others involved in the scandal, from Janszen and Gioiosa to John Dowd, the man who delivered the damning report to MLB officials that sealed Rose's fate. These interviews and archive clips are actually more interesting than the film itself, and left me feeling that "Hustle" would have been much better as a documentary than as a made-for-television movie.

One other thing to note about the DVD of "Hustle." As I watched it, it seemed painfully obvious that the film was shot in widescreen and cropped on the sides to fit square-shaped television sets. Titles were cut off, as were the sides of some people's heads. It all added up to a rather cramped viewing experience.

For now, Pete Rose remains in limbo. He has a book out detailing his side of the story, and his own website, championing his past statistics, which are undeniably Hall of Fame worthy. "Hustle" will not help Rose's case any more than it will help Peter Bogdanovich's unfortunately spotty career.

4/3/05

Back to the main Cinema Tuesdays Reviews page

More about the Cinema Tuesdays series