Adam San­dler can’t stop hus­tling in the Uncut Gems trailer

Howard Rat­ner is fueled by a com­bi­na­tion of adren­a­line, gam­bling addic­tion, caf­feine, and sheer chutz­pah. He’s an invet­er­ate hus­tler, with one eye on his next quick pay­day and the oth­er on the debt col­lec­tors crack­ing their knuck­les in his gen­er­al direc­tion. And even­tu­al­ly, soon­er or lat­er, he’s going to have to run out of mulligans.

Today brings the first trail­er for Uncut Gems — the lat­est fea­ture from New York mad­men Josh and Ben­ny Safdie, one of the most glow­ing­ly praised films out of the Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, and per­haps the most hot­ly antic­i­pat­ed release (not direct­ed by Mar­tin Scors­ese, that is) on this year’s movie cal­en­dar. And in keep­ing with the sense of propul­sion that informs Howard Rat­ner as well as the film that con­tains him, this trail­er may very well leave you out of breath and panting.

Adam San­dler devours the screen in the lead role, rec­og­niz­able and alien all at once with his sleaze­ball goa­tee and nou­veau-riche spec­ta­cles and osten­ta­tion jew­el­ry. Howard has just land­ed the score of a life­time, an ultra-rare black opal from the mines of Ethiopia, and he has a plan to con­vert it into cash. But his sketchy scheme has a lot of mov­ing parts: rings must be pawned and un-pawned, improb­a­ble bas­ket­ball bets must be won, and Kevin Gar­nett (the Celtics leg­end plays him­self) must be tracked down.

Revolv­ing around the Dia­mond Dis­trict stretch­ing from Fifth to Sixth Avenue across Manhattan’s 47^th Street, but expand­ing its scope to the out­er­bor­ough casi­nos and the McMan­sions of Long Island, it’s anoth­er true New York sto­ry from the Safdie broth­ers. Their films have a claus­tro­pho­bia to them, even when they’re about hag­gard men on a fran­tic all-night dash for their lives, as if there’s no real escape in the city. The trail­er cap­tures the man­ic ener­gy that cours­es through the film, Oneo­htrix Point Never’s elec­tron­ic sound­track rein­forc­ing the fever­ish atmosphere.

Between the cameos from sports shouter Mike France­sa and R&B croon­er The Week­nd, the black com­e­dy about pool resur­fac­ing, and the sidewind­ing city-street cin­e­matog­ra­phy from Dar­ius Khond­ji, this is sure­ly one to watch out for. But of course all eyes are on the Sand­man, return­ing to the Good Act­ing mode he last acti­vat­ed for Noah Baum­bach​‘s The Meyerowitz Sto­ries. Wel­come back.

Uncut Gems comes to the­aters in the US on 25 Decem­ber. A date for the UK has yet to be set.