Uncle Drew Review
Myla Tosatto
I must admit to a couple of things before we get too far into this review:
1. I don’t know much about basketball.
2. I wasn’t aware that Uncle Drew was a ‘thing’ made famous by Pepsi commercials.
3. I know of about three or four professional basketball players in all of time and space.
You would think this would reduce my chances of enjoying the new movie, Uncle Drew. It did not. I thought it was a laugh riot. Yes, the entire movie is about basketball. Apparently you don’t need to be a baller to appreciate the humor and warmth of Uncle Drew.
Uncle Drew is an underdog sports movie. Coach Dax (Lil Rel Howery) loses his team and his girl (Tiffany Haddish) to obnoxious coach Mookie (Nick Kroll). He enlists Uncle Drew (Kyrie Irving), Big Fella (Shaquille O’Neal), Preacher (Chris Webber), Lights (Reggie Miller), Boots (Nate Robinson), and Betty Lou (Lisa Leslie) to help him win the Rucker Classic Tournament. Dax gets a love interest along the way in Maya (Erica Ash).*
I’m not sure what I expected from Uncle Drew, but what I got was a funny and charming movie. This is movie for anyone who liked such films as The Bad News Bears, The Blues Brothers, The Wizard of Oz, and Drumline (directed by Uncle Drew’s director, Charles Stone III). And like a good basketball game, it moves fast.
Since many of you are already driving your kid’s teams around, go ahead and load up the sportos after a sweaty practice, sit in the dark movie house and have some laughs (and even learn some life lessons). Get a Pepsi (we are not sponsored in any way by Pepsi, I just wanted to appear knowledgeable) and watch Shaq dance. Yes, Shaq dances. Sounds like a slam dunk to me. Sure, it’s PG-13, but it’s pretty mild. You might also want to check out the kicking soundtrack.
*If you are a sports mom like me, you will appreciate what Maya can do with a tourney t-shirt. Had I been as stylish as her at the countless games I sat through, I might have enjoyed myself a little bit more at the 100 degree baseball games I viewed.