Miracle - Das Wunder von Lake Placid

During the 2010 Winter Olympics, NBC broadcast a 30-minute documentary piece on the 1980 US Olympic ice hockey team. While I knew the story of how they beat the Soviets and won the Gold Medal (I had seen it live as a kid), I was expecting some clichéd rhetoric about the team and what they had done, akin to films like "Knute Rockne, All American" (1940) and "Rocky" (1976). I was pleasantly surprised to find that the story was anything but. The coach of that team, Herbert Brooks, was no hackneyed clone of a Knute Rockne or a Vince Limbardo. Instead he was a tight-fisted uncompromising hockey general who distanced himself from his players, more like a Bobby Knight than a Knute. This was not someone with whom teammates would feel comfortable having a beer. Instead, his inspiration to the players came from the other direction, by exposing their weaknesses and in some cases using unfairness and resentment as anchors from which to get the best out of his players. I decided that "Miracle" might be worth a look, especially as a prelude to the US vs Canada in the gold medal round of 2010 Olympic Hockey.

Kurt Russell portrays Herbert Brooks as a lean and mean hockey coach who leaves sentimentality at the front door of the ice hockey rink. From the get-go he informs his players he's not there to be their friend. His goal is to let loose their highest playing potential coupled with the best conditioning among the Olympic hockey players at all costs. At times, he seems to be driving the players too hard well-beyond their comfort zones. Much of the story is the unconventional training techniques he uses to prepare the players for the 1980 Winter Olympics. According to the film, Brooks is relatively new to these techniques which he adopted while studying USSR hockey. His plan is to use the Soviets' techniques against them in the Olympics, which is not just about strategy but also about extreme discipline and an uncompromising tough sensibility akin to the military. One character points out that everything Brooks does has a purpose behind it.

The only short-coming in the script may be the portrayal of Brooks' wife who finds her relationship with her husband compromised, at least according to the film. I wondered if it played out in real life as in the film or if it was fabricated by the screenwriters. Too many sports movies have this sort of relationship with the wife acting as the balance between the obsessive coach and the needs of his family. She's been through this before. Why did she marry him in the first place? To be a successful account?

Certainly, most Americans know the outcome of the story, although the sequence of the game between the US and the Soviets is riveting and plays out about as well as the fight between Rocky and Apollo Creed. However, the meat of the story is really about the relationship between Brooks and his players, and the coach's single-minded determination to create the best Olympic team possible. By putting a certain amount of anger and determination into their hearts and heads, Brooks brings out the best in them, much like a sergeant in boot camp. The speech before the Americans played the Soviets is one of the better scenes of its type, leaving behind the "do it for the Gipper" silliness that has become a sports cliché. The only moment which was lacking in the film was the speech before the very final game when the US played Finland after the Soviets. In that speech, apparently Brooks told his team that if they didn't win, they would go to their graves regretting the missed opportunity. I would have liked to have seen Russell give that speech as well. Apparently Herb Brooks died before the principal shooting of this film had ended, and the film is dedicated to him. Just about as fitting a tribute as a coach could ask for.

I was too young to have known anything about this game when it was played in real life, but it was definitely more than a game. It concerned world politics and the cold war. The movie did a good job showing how seemingly impossible it seemed for the young American team to beat the best team in the world who had been playing together for 10 years. And Kurt Russell did a good job as the tough coach who was hard on the players to get the most out of them. I also liked the way the hockey games were filmed. I think hockey is the most boring sport and I don't know any of the rules, but the way it was filmed let the least knowlegdable person follow what was going on.

FINAL VERDICT: If you like sports movies, then don't miss this one.

I was wary at first of Disney production of this film. I didn't want the cheesy Mighty Ducks type of sports movie, especially when dealing with the awesome task completed by these players. I thought the film makers did a nice job and the movie itself was quite entertaining. I think it exposes a whole generation to the 1980 U.S. hockey team and what they accomplished. Even though I am not a fan of Kurt Russell, I thought he was very good as Herb Brooks. He had the mannerisms and the voice down very well. Russell is a huge hockey fan himself so I know it was honor for him to play Brooks. For die hard hockey fans, this movie will entertain and it does not poison the game action or what it is really like to play hockey.

I am the child of two St. Paul east- siders. My father has loved hockey for as long as he can remember. My mom, well, she just likes sports in general. Hockey ruled my life from the very first moments. First my father's practices and games, then my little brother, later on there were boyfriends, friends, high school, and college. Now there is Gophers and Wild. I imagine that hockey will continue to define my life for a very long time.

That said, for Minnesota kids there are legends told to them from the beginning. How Paul Bunyan shaped our lakes and rivers, and lived "Up North", and there is Herb Brooks. Legends that define Minnesota heritage.

Herb Brooks was a man who shaped the way hockey is viewed in Minnesota. A stand out at St. Paul Johnson High School, and at the U. He went to coach his beloved Gophers and work with his idol John Mariucci. Now the ice at Mariucci Arena (not 2 miles from where I sit now) bears tribute to Herby. His coaching techniques are still used and abused throughout the state.

Kurt Russell paid apt tribute to our late leader, and I am positive he would be impressed. I was fortunate enough to get sneak-preview tickets to see Miracle, and I can honestly say I don't remember when I had such a good time at the movies. I don't think I stopped smiling once. Russell's accent was good throughout the movie, but on just a few lines I could have SWORN that he was a Minnesotan. He elongated his vowels very well.

Eddie Cahill did a superb job as Jim Clark. I wondered how exactly he would play someone so torn between immense sadness and undeniable pride. I was even more impressed with his hockey skills. I hope that this helps the very yummy Mr. Cahill move from TV-boyfriend dujor (friends, Sex and the City) to a great movie actor. As it is the only thing that disappointed me was that he was running around the Cities last summer, and I had no idea.

If you are still reading this it goes without saying that I think you should see this movie. Sure you know how it ends, you've probably seen the game at least once on ESPN Classic even if you are old enough to remember it in the first place. The portrayal of our country at such a dark time in the world's history is historically great. Apt tribute is paid to Afghanistan (even if we are repeating the USSR's mistakes now), the Ayatollah, the oil embargo, and the general distrust in government. The Miracle on Ice was a very bright spot in a very dark time, and Miracle does a wonderful job showing just that. To those who say, who outside the US cares? I say hockey fans care. Sports fans care. This is not just a hockey movie (though it is a great one); it is a movie about hard work and perseverance. Isn't that what America really stands for?

So, Bravo Disney. I think Herby would have been pleased. I know that I am.

MIRACLE, the Disney retelling of the U.S. Hockey squad's astonishing Gold Medal performance at Lake Placid in 1980, is not a great film (a TV-movie from 1981, "Miracle on Ice", despite the bizarre casting of 69-year old Karl Malden as 43-year old coach Herb Brooks, is superior, although relying heavily on TV footage for game sequences), but it does offer Kurt Russell in one of the finest performances of his long career.

The 53-year old Russell, a life-long veteran of both TV and film (making his debut on a "Sugarfoot" TV episode, at age 6), has developed a reputation over the past two decades as a very competent, if not overpowering leading man, primarily in action films (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, TOMBSTONE, BREAKDOWN) and comedies (USED CARS, CAPTAIN RON, OVERBOARD). What is often forgotten, however, is that he has remarkable 'range' as an actor, with brilliant performances in the TV-movie "Elvis" (1979), the underrated SWING SHIFT (1984, where he met his long-time love, Goldie Hawn), and 2003's DARK BLUE (as a crooked cop searching for redemption during the bloody aftermath of the Rodney King riots in L.A.). As age has carved his features, Russell has lost the "beach boy" glamor that had often 'stereotyped' him in the past, and gives his 'Herb Brooks' a sense of credibility and pain that lifts his performance to Academy Award caliber.

Herb Brooks was a remarkable person, long before Lake Placid. Despite success in coaching a string of national champion college hockey teams, he had never recovered from being the last player 'cut' from the 1960 Gold Medal U.S. hockey squad, and from being a member of the '64 and '68 teams that were humiliated by the Soviets. Driven by a desire to beat the nearly invincible Russian squad, he realized that a group of college 'all-stars' would never possess the 'team' skills to get the job done. Ruthlessly, refusing the assistance of the U.S. Olympic Hockey Committee, he pieced together a squad of talented skaters, 'broke' them, then remolded them to fit his vision, working them unmercifully for over six months, while spouting Vince Lombardi-like platitudes. Despite his torturous regimen, just days before the Olympics, his team would be humiliated by the Soviets, 10-3, and no one gave his squad a chance for a medal.

But Brooks had faith, and a squad that was 'hungry'...

While the film suffers from a lack of depth in the portrayal of the players (by the way, they do all their own skating; TV footage is not used), MIRACLE's 'feel' of the decade is well-done, using montages and voice-overs to convey the American sense of helplessness in a decade of tragedies. The unexpected U.S. victory galvanized the nation (Al Michaels' stunned reaction, "Do you believe in Miracles?", has become a catch phrase for both the game, and the times), and actually contributed to turning the country around.

While the Academy Awards will probably ignore Kurt Russell's commanding performance (as the film was not a 'hit'), MIRACLE is still a film worth viewing, given our own troubled times. While the film may not be 'great', it's message of hope is certainly worthwhile!