BEFORE: Sure, I could have watched "Mighty Ducks" #2 + #3, but honestly, I don't feel the need. Plus that would screw up the schedule that I just re-worked.
I haven't really been talking about my progress in making my watchlist smaller, mainly because there just hasn't been any. I've got 230 movies left on the list, and 6 months ago, I also had 230 movies left on the list (not the same 230, obviously...). So every day I've watched a film, I've also found one to add. It makes the whole process seem rather futile, but now, thanks to the dispute between CBS and Time Warner, I'm not getting the CBS-owned channels like Showtime and The Movie Channel, so I've got my best chance in a long while to get that number down. And I've got 90 more chances to move that needle before I close up shop for the year.
Linking from "The Mighty Ducks", Joshua Jackson was also in "Scream 2" with Liev Schreiber (last seen in "The Manchurian Candidate").
THE PLOT: Labeled an outcast by his brainy family, a bouncer overcomes long odds to lead a team of under performing misfits to semi-pro hockey glory, beating the crap out of everything that stands in his way.
AFTER: I'll be honest, when I read the plot summary I was afraid that this was just going to be another rehash of the same old sports movie clichés - (come on, say it with me...) a ragtag bunch of losers (with one outstanding player, and one grizzled veteran) have to overcome adversity to form a team and, through hard work, determination and a few trick plays, take an unlikely run at the playoffs. (see also: "Bad News Bears", "Major League", etc. etc.)
And this film sort of meets those expectations, then it kind of exceeds them, or perhaps it finds a way around them. For starters, no one is court-mandated to coach the team - the coach here is a pretty realistic minor-league hockey coach (one assumes) and the whole thing is told from the point of view of the "unlikely" player - though he's sort of like that giant kid in "The Mighty Ducks" who could shoot the puck well, but couldn't skate. Tonight's hero can fight like crazy, so he just needs to learn how to play hockey.
Or, maybe not - since the coach only puts him in when one of his players gets fouled, so he can go pick a fight with the player who committed the foul, and beat the daylights out of him. This is what I've been looking for in a hockey film - something that really gets into the mechanics of the game. I thought that a hockey fight was something that just happened, but according to this film, it's a major part of the strategy. After all, one of the players from the fight is bound to get a penalty, which leads to time in the penalty box, which leads to a power play, where one team has more players on the ice and can score more easily.
Actually, I'm still really confused by hockey, because it seems like players come in and out of the game very frequently, like in the middle of the play, and this seems odd. I guess I'm used to baseball, since you wouldn't change your second baseman in the middle of an inning unless he got injured on a play, and if that happened, all game activity would cease for about a half-hour. But hockey just keeps on going, and guys keep jumping on and off the ice, seemingly at random.
Another cliché that gets touched on here is that of rivalries - there's a veteran player that's been sent down to the minors because of his rough play, and it turns out the guy he injured is a teammate of the central character (who got sent down because he lost his "mojo" after the injury). But since each team has sort of an "enforcer" character, the veteran's real rivalry is with our hero, Doug "The Thug". But they've never met, so how can they be rivals? Ah, but they're destined to meet, and they're destined to fight in the end.
What's interesting about the long build-up to this fight is that it suggests that hockey (and therefore, logically, boxing) is really a mental game. But if that were the case, then two boxers would step into the ring and try to out-think each other, meaning no punches would get thrown, and that's just ridiculous. Boxing (and therefore, logically, hockey) is a brutal, non-thinking game, and that's what gets depicted here.
(ASIDE: Hockey sort of reminds me of chess boxing, which intrigues me, and yes, it's a real sport. It's just like it sounds, two men box each other for a round, then switch gears and play chess for 5 (?) minutes, then it's back to boxing. It seems stupid, until you realize that it's an intense physical activity that involves being hit in the head, followed by a mental activity that could be made more difficult by being hit in the head. The Olympic biathlon (cross-country skiing and target shooting) didn't make much sense either, until I realized it's an intense activity that increases the heart rate, followed by a activity that requires complete calm and a low heart rate.)
But why is the dialogue so terrible in this film? It's so bad, it feels like a half-written film - they couldn't even think of proper comebacks when one player insults another. (OK, maybe they're trying to show the other character is stupid, but come on....even stupid people can yell back.) In the end I couldn't tell if the actors themselves were dumb, or just good at acting like dumb people.
The main character himself is really a big void here, I wasn't sure if he went into hockey because he'd finally found his calling, or he just thought it would be fun, or if he was trying to make his friend (who hosted a public access show about hockey) very happy. A little insight into a character's motivation goes a long way, and just saying he's "dumb" is a poor substitute. There's one scene where he defends himself to his parents (who don't quite get the hockey thing), but that's about it.
Here's what I think happened: a few years back, Kevin Smith announced he would be making a hockey movie, titled "Hit Somebody" - based loosely on the Warren Zevon song in which David Letterman made a vocal cameo as a hockey coach yelling the title phrase. So some other company decided to rip off the idea and they fast-tracked a hockey movie, even cast an actor who'd been in one of Kevin Smith's films, and by the time they got it released, Smith switched gears and decided to make "Red State" instead. Which is a nice fake-out, except it left the under-developed opposition with the topic all to themselves. (Ha, a little research proves my theory - the lead actor here was originally cast by Kevin Smith for his hockey film, and then was replaced.)
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, Kevin Smith...
NITPICK POINT: And this is not against the movie, it's against bagpipes, which appear in the film playing at the games of the Halifax Highlanders. There's that signature tune, the one you always hear bagpipers playing in movies, and it has that really high note that always, always, sounds out of tune. Maybe it's just difficult to hit that note, but for Christ's sake, can't anyone play this instrument correctly? Or is every set of bagpipes everywhere just constantly in need of tuning? And if there's no possible way to play this song right on the bagpipes, why does everyone keep trying? Hire better bagpipers, or pick a different damn song, one where people can hit all the notes right.
Also starring Seann William Scott (last seen in "Cop Out"), Jay Baruchel (last seen in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian"), Alison Pill (last seen in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World"), Eugene Levy (last seen in "Almost Heroes"), Marc-André Grondin, Jonathan Cherry.
RATING: 5 out of 10 head-butts
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