The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend

1991 biopic

Rating: 9/20

Plot: A tall tale based on young Pete Maravich, a little guy with a big heart. He works hard, dribbling around his living room with a blindfold and practicing his father's basketball drills, until he winds up on starting for the varsity team as an 8th grader.

The only thing bigger than this kid's heart is the chunk of cheese the makers of this movie drop in your lap. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate the message behind the movie. But when a character actually said, "Pete, watching you makes me want to dream," I had to start giggling. It's cheese from the get-go as we open with a scene of an old Maravich conversing with his son or some other kid (something about dreaming, I think) while walking in an empty gymnasium. There's gratuitous patriotism; at one point, there's a completely random shot of an American flag. I think it's to remind the viewer about dreaming or something. There are also about five too many of those 1980s musical montage scenes. I thought the kid playing Maravich (Adam Guier) was great. He looked a little slow as he was making his moves, but you could tell he had some game when he was spinning the ball on his finger, making behind the back or head passes, and dribbling around. But enough's enough. I don't need to see another five minute montage with terrible music to show me how hard he works. I guess it was to show what a person should do when they have a dream or something. The very worst thing about this movie is the narration. Whenever the narrator says anything, it seems like he's interrupting. And it's completely unnecessary since whatever he says is usually repeated visually or through character dialogue right after he's finished talking anyway. I'm fairly sure that liberties were taken with the late Maravich's story, but there are a couple few scenes that would have really embarrassed him. There are probably some sweaters that would have embarrassed him, too. One scene involves young Pete (a little guy with a big heart) finally deciding to stand up to the bully, a comeback we've been waiting for the entire movie, when all he can say is, "You're a butthead." You're a butthead? Come on, Pistol Pete! A scene involving an intentional foul is so poorly done that it made half of the people I watched this with laugh. Somehow, he's knocked unconscious even though he didn't have an injury to the head. The head, as you probably know, is where dreams are kept. And the final scene? Whoa. I almost lost my lunch. The above poster has the same effect actually.

This was watched on the big screen at school with students. I forgot to ask them for their ratings. They're a bunch of buttheads anyway.