I knew next to nothing about hockey prior to those Olympics but by the end, I was a rabid fan.  The stunning upset of the Soviet team by a bunch of American college students was one of those moments that seems to turn the world upside down.  As a kid in the seventies, there wasn't much to get too excited about in terms of country.  This team changed that.  Through this team I found patriotism, found pride in my country for the first time.  It was also the single most thrilling game I had ever watched and remains so to this day.  I bring all this up to put the movie Miracle into personal perspective.  That mostly means I have a really hard time being objective about the movie.  The events it depicts mean too much to me personally to be able to put some distance from them for the sake of unbiased criticism. 

But who gives a rat's ass about unbiased when discussing such a moment.  I'd really rather just wallow in the moment, soaking up every great thing about it.  Luckily the movie makes that easy.  It opens with titles over clips, images and voices of the seventies, setting the stage, giving us a clear idea of where the world was at the time.  Younger people don't really understand this but it was an awful awkward period for the country.  Vietnam, Watergate, the oil crisis and the Cold War left the nation with no real comfort zone.  Every facet of life had been tainted.  Most of my generation grew up convinced that nuclear war could happen at any moment.

The movie focuses on the coach of the U.S. Olympic hockey team, Herb Brooks.  We see him hired and taking instant control of the program and converting it into his.  He changes the schedule, the training and the strategies.  He ignores the advice of others and hand picks the players he wants for the team.  Brooks says he doesn't want "the best players but the right players." 

For the most part we don't get to know the players as this is Brooks's story.  The major figures like Eruzione, Craig and Johnson come forward but none of the players are really well developed.  That could be considered a flaw but it fits right in with Brooks's design for the team.  He wanted the individual to go away and be absorbed as part of the team.  He had a plan but it required that his players be one unit, working together like a well oiled machine. 

Looming large over everything is the specter of the Soviet team.  This is a team that destroyed an NHL All-Star team.  It had won gold at the last four straight Olympics.  It was the best team in the world and the number two team wasn't even close.  It's very hard to imagine a greater mismatch than this.  And yet somehow the American team won the game and shortly after that, the gold medal.  This isn't a spoiler, it's well known information and despite that, the movie keeps the tension levels high and makes that game nearly as riveting as the real thing.

The camera work is key.  It takes a very hands on approach to the game, with cameras right in the middle of the action, speeding along as if one of the players.  You don't get the ridiculous set up shots of the Mighty Duck movies, opting instead for very realistic shots that help convey the idea of being on ice during a game.

The setup to that big game is nice too as it mostly isolates Brooks and his players from world events.  The result is that the focus is on the training and bonding as a team.  By the time they arrive in Lake Placid it hasn't really occurred to them, even Brooks, just how much this means to the public.

Brooks is played by Kurt Russell who turns in a magnificent performance.  Russell somehow seems to change his whole face, tightening into that intense look of Brooks's.  Coupled with the hair helmet and plaid pants, he makes a highly convincing facsimile.  But it is more than that, Russell really builds a great character, showing how driven Brooks was to succeed and what drove him.  Russell is generally underrated as an actor but a performance like this should show he has the chops to handle just about any role.

Miracle does a great job of bringing back the feeling of that time period.  More importantly it gives a rousing rendition of that legendary game, letting viewers really know what it was like the first time around.  It's just a shame that Brooks didn't live long enough to see the finished film.  It's a great tribute to a great hockey mind.

 - John Shea

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