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Miracle (Widescreen Edition) Customer Reviews (46 - 48 of 70 Reviews)

"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone..."
The first hockey games I ever watched were during the 1980 Winter Olympics and I know I was not alone in that respect. It took a while to understand what a blue line had to do with icing the puck and I have never gotten past the idea of what basketball would be like if it was played the same way as hockey (you are allowed to follow the guy with the puck/ball). But I remember watching the games the U.S. Hockey Team played against the Soviet Union and Finland. How big was the miracle that Al Michaels proclaimed during the final seconds of the semi-final match against the Soviets? Well, when "Sports Illustrated" came out the next week there was no need for a headline or caption on the cover photo of the U.S. team celebrating.

Knowing what is going to happen in "Miracle" is important because if we did not know that this team is going to win the gold medal then we might suspect the means that coach Herb Brooks (Kirk Russell) is using to achieve that end. Brooks is haunted by the 1960 Winter Olympics, when he was cut from the U.S. team a week before it won the gold medal. It was also the last year the Americans beat the Soviets on the ice and Brooks knows how to pull off the upset against the best hockey team on the planet. All it will take is a team that he handpicks playing the way he wants them to play.

The best part of this film is watching how Brooks does exactly that and then becomes basically a spectator and cheerleader when his team goes out and wins the gold medal. Director Gavin O'Connor hits a bulls eye with the casting of Russell, who should get serious Oscar consideration for his performance. The hard driven coach who puts his sport before his wife and family is something of a cliché, but what matters here is how Brooks' determination and intelligence comes through as he molds his team.

The production also scores because they went out and got hockey players to act instead of trying to fake us out the other way around. The only real professional actor on the team is Eddie Cahill, but he plays goalie Jim Craig. You can put anybody you want behind a mask in goal on the ice (former Edmonton Oilers' goalie Bill Ranford in fact) and because Craig was such high maintenance and high profile he was the one role where you needed to up the acting level. But Michael Mantenuto as Jack O'Callahan, Patrick O'Brien Dempsey as Mike Eruzione, Nathan West as Rob McLanahan, Eric Peter-Kaiser as Mark Johnson, and the other 15 players on the team are playing exactly what they are: hockey players brought together to create a team.

One thing I was surprised about in the film was that there is never an explicitly stated reason why Eruzione was picked as the team captain. Yet in the context of the film I was right in thinking that I knew exactly what Eruzione was going to do that was going to make him stand out as first among his teammates. (You will know what I am talking about when the moment comes).

The fidelity to recreating the moments we remember from the 1980 Olympics was quite impressive. You can check out the added features on this two-disc DVD set to see direct comparisons of the television footage from the actual games with the movie's re-creations as well as the techniques used to give you a dynamic feeling of being on the ice. Of course getting Al Michaels to "call" the games again was a necessity and it is not surprising that they worked in the original version of his famous line that gives the movie its title. You can re-create history but you cannot really improve on it, although this 2004 film does a nice job of trying to accomplish that particular feat. I just wonder if those who know nothing about what happened at Lake Placid in 1980 can appreciate that as much as those of us who do.

Maricle on ice
What an amazing event that took place in 1980, and what an amazing story. I was only six years old when the game took place, but was unable to watch it on TV. The Cold War was still at its height. I recall as a kid we sometimes played a war type game and usually the imaginary enemy was the Soviets. I'm sure the kids growing up in the Soviet Union where playing war against the imaginary American enemy too.
This movie shows how Herb Brooks molded this group of young men from different colleges and backgrounds into the US Olympic Hockey Team. Not just a group of men that would play hockey in the Olympics, but a true Team! At the same time the movie gives us a since of what political events where taking place, and the low moral that Americans felt at that time. The action scenes on the rink really made us feel that we are there, not only in the stands watching, but actually on the rink. They used awesome camera shots. Although we know the outcome of the game, watching it can put you on the edge of your seat. And when the final buzzer ends the game, you can really feel the pride and happiness that people at Lake Placid and also people at home watching felt back in 1980. What a moral boost!
Winning a hockey game can seem very trivial, but this win was something we Americans needed. The pride and moral boost that it gave us was a very welcome gift. And maybe, just maybe, this hockey game was what helped start the thaw in the Cold War. Today the Soviet Union is no more, and Russia can be called a friend. Maybe this game did have a small role in that.

Miracle Scores A Winner
Miracle is an inspirational story told without too much Disney fluff, thanks in large part to director Gavin O'Connor. His attention to detail is fantastic. Casting was dead on for this one too. As a Chicago Blackhawks fan, I'd followed the budding career of defenseman, Jack O'Callahan (Michael Mantenuto) who was property of the Hawks at the time. I can honestly say all the actors looked like their real life counterparts, especially the players & coaches of the USA & USSR teams. Hockey plays were re-enacted with incredible precision. After I got done watching it, 1980 didn't seem that long ago. In addition, Miracle offers some of the most dynamic cinematography for a sports movie since Seabiscuit last year. The editing is some of the best I'd ever seen for any movie. It baffles the mind how much film they had to go through to make to this movie with all the multiple camera angles employed. To fully appreciate this endeavor, I would recommend watching the making-of documentary. Also try to listen to the Herb Brooks interview. I say listen because it's shot with a very unsteady handheld camera. I couldn't bear to watch it & quickly turned off the video. What no tripod available? But I digress beacuse that was the only problem I had with this dvds' production. The roundtable discussion was a nice touch. In conclusion, I strongly recommend Miracle to the curious or casual fan alike. For the hockey fanatic, it's probably the best movie depiction of the actual speed of the game... I believe!

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