I have to admit right away that not only am I not a hockey fan, nor a sports fan at all, I also had never heard of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team that beat the Soviets in a stunning upset to win the gold medal at Lake Placid, New York. Apparently, according to the sports-loving friend I took to the screening, it's one of the most famous moments in American sports history.
Miracle dramatizes the story of the beat-the-odds team, a collection of college ice-hockey players whose victory over the seemingly invincible Soviets (they had won the gold at the last five Olympic Games) inspired a country beaten down by Vietnam, Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis and the gasoline shortage. At least that's the way director Gavin O'Connor and screenwriter Eric Guggenheim portray it, opening their film with a montage of historical footage and keeping current events prominently in the background as they follow coach Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) in his efforts to piece together a team that can bring some glory back to the U.S. hockey program.
Although the story is true, and O'Connor pays close attention to historical detail, the film still follows most of the tried-and-true sports-movie clichés. Herb has a long-suffering wife (Patricia Clarkson) who scolds her husband for spending long hours away from home, but still stands steadfastly by as he puts the team ahead of his family. He works the team hard, but it's for their own good, and he's got avuncular assistant coach Craig Patrick (Noah Emmerich) to play good cop.
It's clear that O'Connor is making a movie about a sport, and not about characters, as Herb is really the only figure in the film given a well-rounded portrayal. The team is mostly a sea of faces, except for star goalie Jim Craig (Eddie Cahill), who's dealing with his mother's death, and volatile defenseman Jack O'Callahan (Michael Mantenuto), who suffers a critical 11th-hour injury. Hockey fans will no doubt be delighted at the care taken to recreate the team's training and the detail O'Connor brings to the game sequences. Non-hockey fans (like, say, me) will probably be bored to tears during the film's last half-hour or so, which is a compressed re-creation of the final showdown against the Soviets.
Russell plays successfully against type, complete with awesomely bad '70s hair and thick Midwestern accent, and the rest of the cast shores him up nicely. The film is destined to appeal to a niche audience, but that niche will come away very pleased.