I thought some more about it, and I think, for the movie to work, it would have to take place in the past. 60's at the very latest, preferably earlier. Pool today just isn't the same. Who wants to see someone with headphones and his face buried in the smartphone barely get by? I mean it could work as a drama maybe, if you made it REALLY gritty and dirty, but prop bets and hustles? Come on, does anyone fall for those anymore? Watch the modern "hustle" style pool movies, they fall flat, because they are just not believable or relatable. So go the other way, go to a different world and take the audience away from that.
I think the 20's and 30's would be a great setting. You'd have a lot more wiggle room as to what angle you'd like to take. You could make it gritty, realistic, tough...or slightly more upbeat. There could be prop bets in there, lots of pool, cards, dice, ponies..Those all existed in more or less the same form. But the setting is different, so that makes it interesting. People today are into complex characters, being immersed in a different world, and if you go with a drama, you'd have lots of possibilities with that era, action, romance, everything would be available even comedy (but I'd advice against it as that is much harder to pull off). Of course it would be more expensive as well.
If you put pool more in the periphery of the story, you could go with a modern setting. But hustling? No, don't think so.