BEFORE: I'm going to close the Sports Report with hockey, 4 films' worth (5 if you count last night's film, which had a bit of hockey in it). Hockey is the only major league sport I haven't covered, part of that is because I understand hockey even less than I understand golf. When it comes to sports, I often defer to the wisdom of the late great George Carlin, who declared that there are really only three main sports - baseball, football and basketball - and that hockey doesn't count because it's not played with a ball. Everything besides the big 3 is an activity.
He also said that in essence, hockey is three activities in one - skating, hitting a puck with a stick, and people beating the crap out of each other. Is it a coincidence that in the last week my films have covered figure skating, golf (hitting something with a stick) and boxing? Somehow my subconscious must have remembered Carlin's rules and assembled movies on those three topics in a row, culminating in a hockey chain. So, welcome to Team Golf (plus Boxing) on Ice.
Linking from "The Cutting Edge", Moira Kelly was also in "The Safety of Objects" with Patricia Clarkson (last seen in "The Dead Pool").
THE PLOT: The true story of Herb Brooks, the player-turned-coach who led the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to victory over the seemingly invincible Russian squad.
AFTER: This film is set during the Winter Olympics of 1980, and if you can remember the Games of 1980 like I can, well that means you'll feel really old when I point out that was 33 years ago. I was 11 at the time, so that makes me...well, let's just say 39+, OK? But in a way that was a different time - the Russians had invaded Afghanistan, and because the U.S. was thinking about boycotting the Summer Games in the U.S.S.R, the Soviet countries were threatening to not come to Lake Placid. Today, the U.S. has occupied Afghanistan, and because of human rights policies, some people in the U.S. want to boycott next year's Olympics in Sochi, Russia. See? Totally different.
Before getting around to hockey, this film details the events of the 1970's, like the Iran hostage crisis, the energy crisis, inflation, and even Watergate, as if to suggest that the nation was broken, and needed some unifying force to rally back. Later in the film President Carter's famous speech is played, the one where he said that "the erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and political fabric of America". The suggestion here is that Olympic hockey saved the nation, and I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far.
Sure, we all tuned in to watch Olympic hockey, and sure, the games were exciting, but let's keep some perspective here. After all, there continued to be political scandals and mistrust in our elected officials in the decades that followed. A sports victory can only do so much, it can't fix a broken socio-economic system, OK?
Putting that aside, the film does a pretty good job of reminding us how thrilling it was when the scrappy young U.S. team beat the more experienced, genetically superior Soviet team that had been functioning as a unit for a much longer period of time. In addition there's great detail about the extensive training the team underwent to face their opponents. And there's a great connection made between WHAT the coach makes them do, and WHY he makes them do it. The only downside comes with the extensive shots of the coach staring at pieces of paper, or making diagrams on a glass board. There's just no way for the details of the training to come through, at least not to me.
The adversities that needed to be overcome in order to win medals included both the physical (battling injuries during games and exhaustion during training) and the emotional (rivals from different colleges forced to work together). So this fits in perfectly with my new theory about proper sports films.
My rating is for the sports aspect, minus the overblown political implications. I suppose I should deduct points for not depicting the gold medal round against Finland, but then again, we all know that was sort of an afterthought to the game against the U.S.S.R. anyway.
Also starring Kurt Russell (last seen in "3000 Miles to Graceland"), Eddie Cahill, Noah Emmerich (last seen in "Super 8"), Patrick O'Brien Demsey, Michael Mantenuto, Nathan West, Kenneth Mitchell, Eric Peter-Kaiser, and the voice of Al Michaels.
RATING: 6 out of 10 bodychecks
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