Miracle DVD
Buena Vista Home Video
Rated: PG
Genre: Family
Length: 136 minutes
Director: Gavin O'Connor
Year: (2004)
Britt Gillette's Miracle DVD Review
One of the more inspiring films of all time, Miracle is the 2004 Disney rendition of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team's improbable pursuit of Olympic Gold. Based on the true story of the team that captured the nation's imagination, it connects with audience like few movies of its kind…
The story follows the life of Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell), a highly successful college hockey coach who just missed being a part of the last US Olympic gold medal ice hockey team in 1960. Several months before the Olympic games, Brooks is given the task of putting together an amateur hockey made up of mostly college students - one that can compete with the mighty Soviet juggernaut which has not only some of the best players in the world, but a team that has been playing together for over 15 years.
Along the way, Brooks faces a challenge from the team's committee members when he decides to form a roster that fails to include some of the best known players at the time. Intent on choosing a team and not a collection of individual stars, Brooks win his battle, and most of the final roster is pinned down on the first day.
Slowly, Brooks brings the players together (many of them from competing colleges) and creates a true team. Following a loss to Sweden in which his players were more focused on the girls in the crowd than on winning the game, Brooks pushes his players through a series of conditioning drills. He forces them to continuously push and push to the next level, until they are at the brink of exhaustion. He tells them they don't have the talent to beat the Soviets, but they will be the best conditioned team on the ice.
By exerting as much psychological and physical pressure possible on his players, Brooks finds out who has the mental capacity to take the US team to the top level. When the 1980 Olympic games arrive at Lake Placid, the Soviets are the overwhelming favorites. The US team meets the Soviets in the semi-finals, and with gut and grit, they defeat them against overwhelming odds.
Born from a true story that played out in the height of the Cold War (and Soviet power specifically), Miracle is an inspiring tale of teamwork, freedom's triumph over oppression, and the great heights to which ordinary men can aspire. Uplifting and personally touching, this is a film that no sports fan, movie lover, or American should miss. It's central theme drives at the heart of what it means to be American, prompting Al Michaels' famous one-liner "Do you believe in miracles?" Do yourself a favor and watch Miracle…
Britt Gillette
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Posted on 16 December 2004