Customer Reviews

Giant Steps [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

'Giant Steps' would have made a wonderful afterschool special, had it not been for the brief nudity and mature language content.

The story is about a young trumpet player, named Arvo Leek (Michael Mahonen), who is a bit of an outcast at school, and has a great love for jazz music.

One night Arvo has the opportunity to meet his idol, local Jazz legend, Slate Thompson (Billy Dee Williams). Thompson is impressed with Arvo's musical talent and they soon develop a friendship---this is where the film really takes off---

This story explores all the aspects of relationships between people; father and son, brother and sister, first love and betrayal, hope...it is a sweet little movie and Mr. Mahonen shines as the shy *geek* Arvo Leek.

Michael Mahonen is excellent as the quirky teenager. Billy Dee Williams mumbles alot. On the whole I liked this movie because of the off beat style and music. Some of the minor characters were a bit overdone, but I enjoyed the message about "being decent" and setting priorities.

This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. The makers of this movie should be ashamed of themselves for titling it after a great jazz album, Giant Steps by John Coltrane. This movie is poorly written and filled with inane dialogue--and it has a slew of bad actors. Billy Dee Williams (a good actor) really made a mistake with this turkey. He tries to channel the cool that came naturally to jazz musicians of the past but his performance is ridiculous and embarrassing. The only good thing about the movie is the few minutes of jazz that come all too infrequently.

I can see why this movie hasn't been released on DVD--it's just awful.