At the height of the Cold War, lots of really bad things were going on -- not just in America, but abroad, as well. On the mainland, we were in the middle of a very bad recession, with gas lines growing all too common. Overseas, we had the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to worry about. All of this helped dampen people's faith in the American dream. If Soviet expansion was not on everyone's mind in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Reds' proficiency at what seemed like everything else was. Hockey was not among the least of these talents.
The Soviet Olympic hockey team of 1980 was a well-oiled machine. On the ice (and probably off, as well), these men were to be feared. Enter Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell), the creative coach of the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers hockey team. He's a man with two things: a big dream and the brains to make that dream come true. He wants to beat the Commies at their own game, and damned if anyone will stop him. He assembles his U.S. Olympic team with lightning speed and works the unruly bunch to the bone. Many of Herb's methods are unorthodox (some might go so far as to call them harsh or cruel), but he proves to be a man who can detect limitations... before pushing them beyond normal boundaries. As history tells us, the U.S. team overpowered the Soviets in an intense and exciting match that they really had no business winning. Miracle recreates much of that historic game.
The real reason to watch Miracle is Kurt Russell's fiery performance as Coach Herb Brooks. I must admit, my Kurt Russell experience is somewhat limited; I've seen Stargate and the countless Disney movies where he played the eternal guinea pig known as Dexter Riley. Although the real Herb Brooks died in a car accident shortly after Miracle's filming, I could tell that Russell really wanted to capture the man's sense of passion. He manages to find the right kind of Minnesotan accent, which is far more subdued and realistic than William H. Macy's ridiculously hilarious performance in Fargo. With regards to Russell's performance, one scene in particular stood out for me. After celebrating the holidays with his team, Herb returns home to find his wife and kids tucked away in bed. A note written by his daughter indicates that the Christmas tree has already been decorated, save for the star. A smile crosses Herb's face, but it soon melts away to a very complex expression that indicates a combination of grief and longing. Regardless of what scene Russell is in, the veteran actor steps up to the plate with panache.
Miracle is not about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team so much as it is about Herb Brooks himself. The movie is interested in how he deals with pressure on both the team and home fronts. He has a row or two with his wife, who is clearly concerned about Herb's over-intense dedication to his dream. When he's not dealing with that, he's tormented by the idea that he has to let one of his players go. It's often very moving, and that's credited to many of the performances (not just Russell's, but many of the hockey players, who in reality are hockey players first, actors second).
The Blu-Ray release of Miracle contains several extras, and if you are a sports buff, you'll find a lot to like. The best of these extras occasionally shows the film side-by-side with the actual game. The painstaking detail in recreating many of these plays is quite commendable. On the movie side of things, however, the extras suffer a bit. When they are not showing how the cameraman had to pull off the film's most intense shots, the hockey team actors spend about ninety percent of their time gushing about how similar they are in person to their 1980 counterparts. Barf.
I've had almost nothing but great things to say about Miracle, so you're probably wondering here at the end, "Why the 80% score?" Don't get me wrong - Miracle is a good movie, but its biggest problem is that it plods way too much, making it a much longer film than it should be. Sometimes it feels like they've simply tried to fit as much footage of the legendary 1980 match as they possibly could. Authenticity or no, I definitely know when I'm sick of hearing about every single save by Jim Craig. Regardless of its shortcomings, Miracle is a refreshingly patriotic film that is definitely worth a rental.
