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!
