The film about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey victory has some good moments, but at times it feels all too familiar.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published February 5, 2004
[Photo: Walt Disney Pictures]
Kurt Russell does well playing coach Herb Brooks, who took a pack of self-centered underdogs and molded them into champions.
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In 1980, the United States was mired in what President Jimmy Carter described as "a crisis of the American spirit," emotionally drained by a decade of Vietnam, Watergate, gas shortages and hostages in Iran. America needed heroes, and found them on an Olympic hockey rink in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Miracle dutifully recalls the development of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team from a dissenting bunch of me-first players into a team that symbolized the best of U.S. pride and determination. Even moviegoers who don't understand the game can find something to cheer, since the film contains everything we've come to expect in a sports-underdog movie. At times, too much.
Director Gavin O'Connor (Tumbleweeds) created a feel-good movie that occasionally lets the good feelings, or the bad ones setting them up, ramble on too long. Perhaps the problem is more striking after Seabiscuit so nimbly handled a similar socio-athletic dynamic last year. At two hours and 15 minutes, Miracle takes too many familiar scenes into overtime, delaying the arrival to a big game we already know all about.
Kurt Russell does a nice job portraying head coach Herb Brooks, a stern taskmaster who revolutionized American hockey by imitating the Russians and Canadians, who dominated the sport. The way he molds a bunch of talented, self-centered players into a selfless team is a striking metaphor for what the country needed in 1980 and has seldom accomplished since. Russell doesn't need to show much range in the role, and all characterizations here are surprisingly brisk for such a long film. But that consistency of personality was a major reason Brooks succeeded.
More impressive, if often undeveloped, are the actors portraying the players. The casting of the two most familiar figures - Eddie Cahill as goalie Jim Craig and Patrick O'Brien Demsey as team captain Mike Eruzione - is uncanny for physical resemblance. When O'Connor and screenwriter Eric Guggenheim allow the players to be themselves, Miracle finds its emotional pull. But that isn't how Brooks saw his team, and that isn't how the movie plans to see them.
Miracle quickly settles into its rhythm: Someone will tell Brooks he's wrong, he'll gruffly brush them off, then prove he's right. It happens in the opening sequence when he applies for the coaching job and tells U.S. Olympic officials his strategy, when he picks the team roster without their input and when he puts the players through grueling workouts, tearing them down to rebuild them in his image.
At home, Brooks clashes with his wife, Patti (Patricia Clarkson), about the time he spends coaching. Clarkson, an Oscar nominee for Pieces of April, is too fine an actor to be shackled to such a one-dimensional role. But she does add polish to a well-worn cliche of the devoted spouse standing by her driven man.
O'Connor stages impressive hockey sequences, especially the stunning Olympic victory over a seemingly invincible Russian team. It's unusual that a semifinal game is more revered than the final (a win over Finland addressed in a climactic voiceover). But that's the political angle, since the Soviet Union in 1980 appeared poised for global superiority.
However, since Brooks shielded his players from the media and kept them too busy for distractions, the importance of representing American dreams is lost on the athletes. The burden of patriotism is placed on the audience. When the players enter the arena to face the Russians, O'Connor films them like the astronauts in The Right Stuff, but the effect isn't the same. Since the story is told from Brooks' point of view, the historical drama never catches fire in Miracle as it did in Seabiscuit. At times, this film could change uniforms and simply be a serious version of The Mighty Ducks.
But those parts that work - solid re-creations of the period, scenes between Craig and Brooks and, of course, the game action - make Miracle a solid movie choice for hockey fans. If O'Connor had reached that next level that Brooks shoved his players to, Miracle could have appealed to many more.
Miracle
Grade: B-
Director: Gavin O'Connor
Cast: Kurt Russell, Patricia Clarkson, Noah Emmerich, Eddie Cahill, Patrick O'Brien Demsey, Michael Mantenuto, Eric Peter-Kaiser, Kenneth Mitchell
