The Pistol – The Birth Of A Legend
(Rebound Edition)
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: C+ Film: C+
Made only after a few years after Hoosiers
(reviewed elsewhere on this site), the independently made The Pistol – The
Birth Of A Legend (1990) tells the story of “Pistol” Pete Maravich, who was
at first short and young, yet was still able to become a major championship
basketball player in this low-budget feature.
On the bright side, executive producer/director Frank C. Schroder does a
decent directing job and writer/co-producer Darren Campbell comes up with a
screenplay that does not trash the history of the character so much that the
film is a hollow shell.
This is why the style and especially dated music help to
sabotage the film, making its limits as a biopic all the more frustrating. Though the film takes place in 1959, it
unfortunately thinks its Footloose (1984) and it includes a sickeningly
excess abundance of post-Beat It electric guitar work from hell. Also, the film expects you to love basketball
and tries far too hard to be one of the many failed “feel good” films from the
1980s. It is not to say that this one
makes you feel bad, but it is not very effective in pulling off that trick,
unless you are already a giant fan.
The result is an interesting time capsule of a film that
wants to be a time capsule of the late 1950s, but is much mole like the 1980s,
sort of like Peter Hyams’ 2010 (1984) in reverse, which is supposed to
be about the future but looks too much like the mid-1980s. Both films suffer from the distance of the
end of The Cold War and end of the USSR, though it is worse for 2010
since the “evil empire” expires 20 years before it should.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is grainy from
the 35mm film stocks used, like Kodak 5294 (still clearer than 5293 for
filmmakers’ reference) and the film could use some restoration work. Randy Walsh’s camerawork is somewhere
between the period and something more naturalistic, which serves as an asset to
the film. The original sound here was
theatrical Ultra Stereo, a lesser version of Dolby A-type analog that had its
share of distortion. As in several
cases of such films on DVD before, there are no surrounds where their would be
to cut down on distortion. This is a
good-enough Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo in any event, though if the original
magnetic sound masters exist, a remix (with a less dated score if possible)
would be highly advised.
Extras are many, including a trailer for this and three
other VCI family titles, text bios on three cast members and the two producers
(Campbell and Rodney Stone) who supply a good audio commentary track,
outtakes/bloopers, text trivia & facts on Pistol Pete and a making of
program that is about 15 minutes and should have been longer. All in all, this is a nice disc that
families and sports fans can enjoy for starters. Those who like independent film production should be interested
as well.
- Nicholas Sheffo
