The Story OF Furious Pete is the story of Peter Czerwinski, who at the age of 16 was hospitalized and nearly died as a result of anorexia. Now, seven years later, he is a champion in the sport of competitive eating. Peter’s mother also has MS. That is pretty much it. I did not enjoy this documentary. Here are the reasons why.
1. As far as documentary subjects go, some people make better subjects than others. I think that Pete is a poor subject. The movie shows Peter as a shy guy who rarely shows his emotions. This might be a charming characteristic in some, but in this movie, it just doesn’t work for me. We are never really let into Petes’ world. In the off chance that we were let into his world, then there isn’t much there to explore.
2. There was an obvious attempt to tie in the whole MS story line with Peter’s mother. As an audience member, this story line fell flat. I think the reason that I didn’t care about it was because we were only TOLD about his mothers MS condition instead of being SHOWN. Documentary is a visual medium. We didn’t see her struggle with the disease which would have made me, an audience member, care more. Also, the whole MS storyline was tacked onto the end of the movie. If it had a larger presence throughout the movie, it might have worked better.
3. I did get interested when they started to discuss and investigate the different rivalries between Pete and the other competitive eaters on the competitive eating circuit, but that story line quickly ended. Didn’t the producers see King Of Kong? Obviously not.
Summary:
Throughout the movie, Furious Peter did not face any struggles. He has beaten anorexia and he destroys his competitors in his eating competitions. Why do I want to see him succeed? There was no antagonist, or at least no obvious one to me. If you want to see a movie about a dude who stuffs butter and hot dogs into his mouth, than Furious Pete is worth checking out. Outside of that, I would pass.
Screening Times
Friday April 30th, 7:30 PM – ROYAL
Sunday May 9th, 1:30 PM – CUMBERLAND 3