Strong and Moving!

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Apparently there were several of these type of films with Scott Baio. I only saw and remember this one. I believe it was aired at night by CBS so I do not know if it was an "afterschool special" or not but it was VERY well done. Scott definitely played a high school hockey player in this one with Lance Kerwin as his very understanding teammate and friend.What no one has mentioned is that it was one of my favorite actors from that era, Don Murray who did a great job of portraying Scott's dad, also an alcoholic. As I recall the movie made some really good points about how alcohol was poisoning the relationship between father and son.This is one of many excellent made for TV movies that came out in the 1970s...Brian's Song, The execution of Private Slovick,Sweet Hostage, Son-Rise, The Jericho Mile. The Lonliest Runner, Leave Yesterday Behind, and Helter Skelter just off the top of my head. As someone else mentioned, it is too bad there is not a cable channel that features these and other movies and miniseries from that era. The encore channels have dabbled in showing some of them but there is room for many more.

BJs Twit, that was ANOTHER other Afterschool Special! The one where Baio was a diver and missed the meet because of a drunk driving accident was called "All the Kids Do It". Jeez, how many of these were there? Anyway, I remember all three of these, and I remember hating Stoned, because obviously Baio's character had problems fitting in, and problems living in his brother's shadow, but all he "learns" is that getting high is the WRONG way to deal with that. Nothing about the RIGHT way. The message I got was that you should do drugs just so you can get clean, and THEN people will respect you for getting clean. What-ever.

This is one of a few (three I think) ABC "After School Specials" that Scott acted in. While his acting in this one is not as good as "Stoned", he plays a similar character spiraling down, due to drinking, not drugs. This is a hard hitting story, as most of the specials were meant to be, so show young people the pitfalls of doing things they shouldn't.

This was an awesome movie. Scott Baio is absolutely wonderful as an aspiring and hard-working diver in training. His dreams come crashing down around him after a night of drinking lands him in the hospital the day before a huge qualifying meet. This movie paints a realistic and disturbing picture of the dangers of drinking and driving. Everyone needs to see it. It will definitely make you think.