MOVIE REVIEW Sluggish 'Miracle' lacks depth

It's a sports clich & eacute; straight out of Hollywood's playbook.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
What goes around comes around, at least in Hollywood circles. Kurt Russell, who began his career in Disney fluffballs like "Follow Me Boys!" and "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," finally returns to The House That Walt Built for the hokey, hockey-themed "Miracle."
Inspired by the true story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team's dramatic come-from-behind victory in Lake Placid, "Miracle" could have been worse. Russell might have been recruited to headline a reprise of Emilio Estevez's "Mighty Ducks."
Pokes along
Plodding, inspirational, and earnest to a fault, "Miracle" clearly aspires to the same folksy, homespun qualities that helped make David Anspaugh's 1986 high school basketball saga "Hoosiers" a cable perennial. But by dragging its Cinderella-on-Ice story out to 135 bloated minutes, "Miracle" feels about as pokey as the equally overlong "Seabiscuit," which took forever to leave the gate.
Solidly if unimaginatively directed by Gavin O'Connor -- his only previous effort was the Sundance hit, "Tumbleweeds," which got Janet McTeer a 1999 Best Actress nomination -- this is one jock movie that desperately needed a little more spark in its game. By trying to honor the memories of coach Herb Brooks (played by Russell) and his Olympic squad, O'Connor and screenwriter Eric Guggenheim have effectively stripped them of personalities. All that's left is nobility, selflessness, and a whole lot of pluck. You'd hardly know they were human.
Sports clich & eacute;
As a result, the events in "Miracle" have a by-the-numbers feel that seems closer to Hollywood's sports clich & eacute; playbook than they do to anything approximating real life. University of Minnesota hockey coach Brooks gets recruited by Olympic honchos to commandeer the U.S. team. Brooks holds tryouts and handpicks his players. Brooks and company practice, practice, practice until finally making it to Lake Placid. U.S.A. team wins a gold medal. The end.
Brooks' coaching technique -- a mix of Canadian and Soviet hockey in which individual effort matters less than group performance -- crosses over to the film as well. The athletes are so badly differentiated that it's tough figuring out who's who. (Not helping matters is the fact that everyone has the same bad period haircut.) The only players/actors I could even remember while driving home were Patrick O'Brien Demsey's team captain Mike Cruzione and Eddie Cahill as goalie Jim Craig.
Lack of character depth
There isn't any more character depth on the coaching side, I'm afraid. Craig Patrick (Noah Emmerich), Brooks' second-in-command, is so ill-served by Guggenheim's script that we learn absolutely nothing about him except his loyalty to Brooks. Despite a typically strong performance from the consistently undervalued Russell, Brooks remains a frustrating enigma, too. His family life is so sketchy that we don't even catch a glimpse of his two kids until they're sitting in the stands with mom during the Olympic finals. Speaking of mom, would it have killed Guggenheim to actually write a part for the great Patricia Clarkson, who's thoroughly wasted here? For Clarkson's sake, I hope she at least pocketed a bigger paycheck than she did for last year's no-budget indies "Pieces of April" (which won her a well-deserved Oscar nomination last week) and "The Station Agent."
The best hockey movie -- and the best darn sports movie period, besides "Bull Durham" -- still remains 1977's larkish, blissfully profane "Slap Shot." Watching O'Connor's depressingly anonymous go-getters swoosh and glide across the ice, I couldn't help think of that deserved cult classic's lovable trio of doofus idiots, the Hanson brothers. Now those were hockey players with personality to burn!
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.