Hu$tle

It's probably unfair to the makers of Hu$tle, ESPN's by-the-numbers Pete Rose biopic, to open a review of it by noting the neo-Beatles rug donned by Tom Sizemore throughout the film. And yet there it is, dominating scenes with a slow-motion sway unseen since the days of James Spader's feathered bangs. Still, even if Sizemore hadn't been out-acted by his hair, Hu$tle fails as both drama and entertainment. You come out of it having gleaned a single insight about Pete Rose: He liked to gamble. And if you didn't already know this, chances are you're more likely to watch a bland Lifetime flick about Mary Kay Letourneau than a glib survey of Rose's descent. There is, however, a single moment in Hu$tle that makes solid contact. After watching the press conference in which commissioner Bart Giamatti says he believes that Rose bet on baseball, Sizemore slowly idles away from the television, pausing for a moment before heading up the stairs. That brief pause does more to foreshadow the sad, nomadic figure that Rose will become—the one who clowns around at WrestleMania and imposes himself on every Hall of Fame ceremony by setting up shop down the street—than the 80 or so minutes of clunky dialogue.