'Miracle' skates into sports movie history

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

MIRACLE (PG) Four Stars (Excellent) A first-rate recounting of the fabled 1980 upset of the Soviet hockey team by a U.S. amateur team at Lake Placid. The hockey scenes are remarkable, long and detailed. Kurt Russell delivers a great performance as hard-nosed coach Herb Brooks, the architect of America's most astounding sports victory. Gavin O'Connor directs. Disney, 100 minutes.

From "Seabiscuit" to "Rudy" to "Hoosiers," we love to cheer for unlikely champions.

But has there ever been a less likely champion than the USA amateur hockey team that took the ice against the seemingly invincible Soviet national hockey team at the 1980 Olympics?

This victory by coach Herb Brooks and a gaggle of college players and pro cast-offs shocked the world. It's the one hockey outcome known by people who only know a Puck as a character in Shakespeare. The event surely deserved Al Michaels' famous declaration: "Do you believe in miracles?"

And now that game — and the team that won it — are the stuff of one of Hollywood's most rousing sports films ever.

"Miracle" offers everything a filmgoer could want from a sports movie, including realistic-looking athletes, the longest and most detailed game footage ever re-created, and the sort of sweeping emotion that'll appeal to far more than hockey aficionados.

The heart of the film, though, is Kurt Russell's compelling portrayal of the hard-nosed, no-nonsense coach, Herb Brooks, the architect of America's most astounding sports victory. From the Great Northern accent to the stiff-shouldered walk to the compressed emotion, Russell is fabulous as Brooks — it's the first great performance of the year.

Brooks was hired only seven months before the '80 Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y. In short order he took a rag-tag gang of rival college players, cocky upstarts and disillusioned veterans and fashioned them into a well-conditioned, tightly knit team. Tough love and hard work were the methods. Brooks lifted the blueprint for the team from the Russians — creating an aggressive style of play that would take the game to the adversary.

Director Gavin O'Connor and writer Eric Guggenheim capture the driving Brooks style in one especially effective sequence: After a mediocre exhibition game in Finland, Brooks makes his exhausted players skate wind sprints until they're fainting and up-chucking and the hall manager turns out the lights. It seems cruel, but wait till you see who has the better legs in the crucial third period at Lake Placid.

The producers of "Miracle" were also responsible for the first-rate baseball films "The Rookie" and "61" — and have been just as meticulous in bringing the 1980 hockey story to the screen.

"Miracle" offered a greater challenge, however — the staging of extensive, believable footage of a fast-paced sport that's extremely difficult to duplicate. (As one producer says, baseball footage isn't staged on frozen water.) And yet, by hiring real hockey players who can act (and a few actors who can play hockey), the realism was achieved.

For the landmark game against the Soviets, O'Connor and his cast and crew give viewers at least 20 minutes of on-the-money hockey action — all staged to the original Al Michaels broadcast.

But the drama here comes from the gritty, determined coach (who tragically died in a car crash as the film neared completion). While the crowd wildly cheers after the final buzzer, Russell's Brooks escapes into the quiet bowels of the stadium for his own private celebration. Thanks to Russell's perfectly measured moment of joy, we understand the personal satisfaction of this marvelous miracle.

Rated PG, with profanity.