Ricky Schroeder gets out of reform school and returns home to mother Carrie Snodgrass and brother Brad Pitt. Pitt is a model teenager, hard-working. He hopes to get into college on a track scholarship. Schroeder looks to be falling back into bad habits, hanging with his shoplifting buddy. Then Schroeder joins his high school's track team and seems to be better than Pitt, who promptly falls to pieces.
Schroeder was coming off a great career as a child actor, while Pitt was still a promising young performer; later in the year, THELMA AND LOUISE would turn him into eye candy, obscuring the fact he can also act. Here, in this junior-league version of True West, it all comes down to the big race.
Which is pretty much the story of lots of movies and almost certainly children's series books for the last century and a half. It's a decent version of the tale, and the actors are interesting for their histories, but little more.
Schroeder was coming off a great career as a child actor, while Pitt was still a promising young performer; later in the year, THELMA AND LOUISE would turn him into eye candy, obscuring the fact he can also act. Here, in this junior-league version of True West, it all comes down to the big race.
Which is pretty much the story of lots of movies and almost certainly children's series books for the last century and a half. It's a decent version of the tale, and the actors are interesting for their histories, but little more.