Pistol: Nasce Uma Lenda

The movie, Pistol: The Birth of a Legend, is an excellent movie. It isn't the #1 hit at the box office type, nor does it have expensive great special effects, like many of the movies of today have. It is simply a story of Pete Maravich, a young boy who's whole life is about basketball. He is inspired by his father who seems to be the only one with faith in him. I am a basketball player and ever since I was a young child going to basketball camp our coach would play this movie every year. It motivates us. To this day we love it when Coach says we are going to watch it. We know every line and appreciate the movie. It is a great motivational movie, I definitely recommend it!

This is about as clean a story as you could find: a nice story about the famous basketball player "Pistol" Pete Maravich in his earlier days. An incredible talent, Maravich went on to star at LSU and then in the professional NBA.

This particular story centers around young Maravich as an eighth-grader playing basketball for his high school team. The first half of the film was fascinating as actor Adam Guier was very credible exhibiting Maravich's tremendous ball-handling skills for a kid his age. There also is some nice photography in here.

The second half of the movie became a little too Hollywood-cliché ridden. I wish they had gone into Pete's college and pro career and ended with his conversion to Christianity before his untimely death. It could have been a very powerful movie instead of just a nice after-school-type TV film. (Just reading another review here, I am glad to learn some of that material is included in the DVD. My only look at this was on tape about a dozen years ago.)

If you can find it, this movie is worth watching. It features superb acting and relatively good sports footage. But the most attractive thing about this movie is its family orientation. There is virtually nothing objectional in the movie, yet it doesn't suffer from a Disney-ish G-rated feeling. It seems like real life in a loving family environment. Of special note is the delicately handled relationship between Pete and his father.

Overall, this is a magnificent sports movie and a great any-movie. Worth renting or buying if the opportunity presents itself.

Pete Maravich was an amazing player--a guy whose college basketball average was a shade over 44 points per game! In the pros, he was also an amazing player and I was fortunate enough to be able to see him play when I was a kid. Unfortunately, Maravich died during a pick-up game when he was only 40--dead due to an undiagnosed heart ailment. This movie about his experience playing first year varsity basketball is a homage to his talents, though I think the man probably deserved a bit better than this.

The boy playing Maravich, Adam Guier, was terrific. His ability to handle the ball made him a joy to watch. So why am I a bit cold about this movie? Well, the script and especially the style of the film are a bit wanting. The film too often relies on hip music, montages and clichés. Additionally, while I am sure Maravich was incredible at this age, the film never shows him once missing a shot...not even once out of several dozen shots!! This all work together to create a film that might entertain kids but which also just cannot be taken very seriously. Not a bad film...just not a very impressive one either.

By the way, the choice of the narrator was interesting. Tom Lester (Eb Dawson from "Green Acres") was chosen and it did make me laugh to hear him speaking as the grown up Maravich.

I enjoyed this video. The movie-making quality is not the highest, and the acting is undoubtedly less than stellar. However, I found that this movie had a lot of heart. It is a much better family movie than many others out there, with no profanity and little violence. I'd recommend this movie to anyone who has an interest in Pete Maravich and his life.

This movie was made to describe the basketball history of Pete Maravich, and shows a special relationship between Pete and his father, which I thought was refreshing. It's a joy to see a parent who did his best to establish common ground with his child so that they could relate to each other. So if you're interested in basketball, go ahead and check this movie out. You may find yourself charmed by the innocence in the story of the young Pete Maravich.