Few recall that an American basketball team actually lost an Olympic championship. That was David Robinson & Co. vanquished by the dreaded Soviets at Seoul 1988, just before the fall of Communism. It turns out that four of the five Soviet starters were from the annexed country of Lithuania, and Lithuanian-American Marius Markevicius's partisan documentary is their story. The interviewed players — including future NBA stars Sarunas Marciulionis and Arvydas Sabonis — are a personable lot, and fabulous court presences. But quite often the film veers away from their stories to become a flag-waving work of Lithuanian nationalism. American audiences will be delighted to see how the Grateful Dead helped pay for the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic team, including supplying tie-dyed T-shirts. But only Lithuanians will thrill to the movie's climax, the hard-fought game against Russia for the 1992 bronze medal.
