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Movie Review
Cheer for a 'Miracle' filled with luck, pluck and plenty of puck

By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic

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Such was the case with my companion for the "Miracle" screening, who had never in many years of close acquaintance indicated that he even knew what hockey was. Suddenly, upon hearing about the movie, he was spouting mysterious names — Herb Brooks, Mike Eruzione, Jim Craig. He was remembering scores, retelling key moments, thinking back to a week long ago when he and his dorm-mates gathered nightly around a TV set and nothing seemed more important than this team and this win. "Miracle," he said, was the way he remembered it — they got it right.

I don't remember the 1980 Olympics myself, but "Miracle" certainly registers as a better-than-average sports movie, perhaps because it has such a terrific story to tell. The real surprise is why it took so long to become a movie. The driven coach (Brooks, played by Kurt Russell), haunted by previous failure, who tried not-so-nice methods to forge a different kind of team; the stepping-on-eggshells political climate between the U.S. and USSR; the scrappy members of the team itself, the last batch of true amateurs to play Olympic hockey (as opposed to the misnamed "Dream Teams") — it's all right out of Central Casting, but conveniently it happens to be true.

Movie review Showtimes and trailer *** "Miracle," with Kurt Russell, Patricia Clarkson, Noah Emmerich, Michael Mantenuto, Eddie Cahill, Patrick O'Brien Demsey, Nathan West, Eric Peter-Kaiser, Kenneth Mitchell, Billy Schneider. Directed by Gavin O'Connor, from a screenplay by Eric Guggenheim. 135 minutes. Rated PG for language and some rough sports action. Several theaters.

Even the beetle-browed Russian coach (during a bad moment in the penultimate game, he starts absently playing with his brows, as if he's untangling them) is, according to my newfound hockey expert, an accurate representation. Though "Miracle's" coach seems too dour to be real, like a Hollywood movie's idea of a bad guy, the real one reportedly looked even more like Bela Lugosi.

While not exactly subtle, "Miracle" is nonetheless made with care and heart, most notably in Russell's meticulous performance. His trademark laid-back handsomeness is buried here under a '70s rug and plaid blazers (Herb, as befits a man whose thoughts are elsewhere, is a bit out of fashion), his voice clipped and vaguely Midwestern, his look agreeably middle-aged. Brooks is a game-player; he'll do whatever it takes to make this team into a winner, with even his tantrums carefully thought out.

As his wife Patti, Patricia Clarkson's considerable talents are somewhat wasted — this is a standard wife-of-the-coach-in-a-sports-movie role, with lots of loving, concerned looks and arguments over his level of engagement with his work. But hey, this recent Oscar nominee ("Pieces of April") is as entitled to pay the rent as anyone, and it's nice to see her getting such high-profile work.

And the filmmakers have wisely cast real hockey players (with a couple of actors tossed in) to play the team members; they're not Hollywood pretty boys but have the unglam pallor of guys who've spent much of their youth in an ice rink.

Other than the Herb-and-Patti domestic drama, most of "Miracle" takes place in the arena, often a whitish blur of legs and sticks. We don't get to know the team off the ice too much, but this is thematically in tune with Herb's coaching strategy: The whole here is far greater than the individual parts. And the hockey sequences, to this non-fan's eye, seem startlingly real; the sickening thud of on-ice collisions isn't sweetened.

"Miracle" is a bit overlong, occasionally falls into sports-movie clichés, and suffers from the inalterable fact that everyone already knows how it ends. (Yes, we do believe in miracles.) But in its best moments — on the ice — it sweeps its audience into a time when a hockey game really mattered, letting even closeted hockey fans fly with the puck and cheer with the crowd.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com.

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