40
Metascore
5 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Chicago TribuneGene SiskelChicago TribuneGene SiskelThe film with the year's funniest title turns out to be a basketball comedy about the Pittsburgh Pisces team transformed onto a winner by a young boy and an astrologer. Real-life basketball star Julius Erving stars in a trivial but entertaining picture filled with rhythm and blues pop music.
- 50The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinIt's cheerfully inoffensive entertainment designed for the crowd that liked "Car Wash," with which one of the present film's producers was also involved, and it offers a similarly shapeless brand of merriment.
- 40Washington PostGary ArnoldWashington PostGary ArnoldMoses has staged one totally abstract, contemplative sequence of Erving practicing by himself on a playground court at night. The succession of slow-motion, overlapping dissolves of Erving gliding and dunking in solitary grandeur is a rather pretty abstraction, but it seems to stylize his prowess in a misleading way. The transcendant thing about Erving is that he's capable of performing feats in competition and in real time that the rest of us only dream of doing while playing one-on-none.
- 20TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineTHE FISH THAT SAVED PITTSBURGH is about as entertaining and memorable as a sports celebrity Miller Lite commercial.
- 10The New YorkerThe New Yorker"I wish they'd just trade me out of this mess," Dr. J says early on. Even the scenes on the basketball court are terrible. Not the least of the mess is the music, by Thom Bell. [19 Nov 1979, p.221]