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MIRACLE--Just when America needed one the most
MIRACLE takes us back to a triumphant moment in American history just when Americans needed one--the miraculous win by the U.S. Olympic hockey squad over the vaunted team from the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York. Framed by the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate that had settled onto our country like a malaise, the film ratchets up things even further by giving us glimpses of the Iranian hostage ordeal and the December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets.

Stepping into the fray is Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell), a veteran hockey coach who as a player came within one step of joining the 1960 U.S. Olympic hockey squad that handed the Soviets their last loss in ice hockey at Squaw Valley. As the film opens, in the summer of 1979, Brooks is given the task of putting a respectable hockey team onto the home ice in upstate New York for the Olympics. For Brooks, however, merely putting a respectable team onto the ice wasn't good enough for him. He wanted the best; and through his relentless drive and his not ingratiating himself to his players, he prodded them to put out nothing short of the best they had in them. The result was that miraculous 4-3 win over the Soviets in the first medal-round game that a few days after that propelled them to a Gold medal via a win over Finland.

Russell, never the showiest of actors but nevertheless one of the best, gives a superb performance as Brooks (who was killed in an auto crash shortly after filming was completed), a man who dedicated himself to putting a winning team into the history books and succeeded. As had been the case in THE THING, EXECUTIVE DECISION, TOMBSTONE, and BREAKDOWN, Russell shows us his professionalism by not necessarily being Mr. Nice Guy, but a man who strives to achieve the extraordinary in his players. Patricia Clarkson is good as his wife (in a too brief role), and Noah Emmerich does a good job as Brooks' assistant.

The gut-wrenching game between the U.S. and the Soviets is recreated in vivid detail with all the hard hits and chants of "USA! USA!" rumbling throughout. But MIRACLE is, thankfully, not about American jingoism and arrogance. It is about achieving the impossible, which is exactly what all Olympic games are supposed to be about. It is an incredible piece, well worth seeing more than once.

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