Movie Review: The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979)

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh is entertaining as this oddity of ’70s pop culture. It stars NBA/ABA legend Julius Erving as the star player for a struggling basketball team in Pittsburgh. A young boy who befriends Dr. J’s Moses Guthrie thinks that the struggling team’s issues are that they are not astrologically compatible, so after consulting a medium (Stockard Channing), they decide to build a team of all Pisces.

This turns around the team’s season, and earns them the heart of the Pittsburgh public.

This is kind of interesting to watch from the perspective of a basketball fan. A lot of notable NBA players (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Connie Hawkins, Spencer Haywood, Bob Lanier, and Mychal Thompson among them) appear playing for other teams, and it’s definitely fun to see Dr. J operate a fast break like he’s Magic Johnson.

But of course, it’s a comedy, and it’s just not very funny. It’s really not a good movie, but it is interesting.

Rating: 4/10