Films can be cliched and still be worthwhile. Now, before you scoff and go back to watching your Brakhage, don’t deny the comfort of a film that’s gone where others have gone before but does so in a way that does the formula justice rather than feeling like an exercise. While action films and romantic comedies tend to stick to a pattern, one of the most tightly constructed formulas is found in the sports film. Established by The Bad News Bears, the team of underdogs against the seemingly invincible team managing to rise victorious (or losing and still feeling victorious) is the way that most sports films operate. The team consists of goofballs, oddballs, the detached kid, the fantastic player with emotional problems, the fantastic player with a secret physical injury and the coach aiming for redemption. But despite the formula, the cliches can come together and still form a good film. Miracle is one of those good films.

Telling the story of the 1980 U.S. hockey team that beat the reigning-champion Russians (a spoiler as much as Jesus dying at the end of The Passion), Miracle feels like The Mighty Ducks: All Grow’d Up. And while acting legend Emilio Estevez held that film together fine, Miracle rides on the strength of Kurt Russell’s commanding performance as team coach Herb Brooks. Russell is of those actors who only gets better with age, and this is a guy who already has the roles of Snake Plissken (Escape From New York), Jack Burton (Big Trouble in Little China) and R.J. MacReady (The Thing) to his credit. Russell manages to hold the entire film together by playing a man who not only wants to win and has the intelligence to do so, but also has the ferocity to push others to it as well. He’s a good man, but it’s not always easy to like him.
When he first assembles his team, he tells them right off the bat, “I’m not your colleague. I’m not your friend. I’m your coach.” There’s one sequence where Brooks has the team run a skating drill after losing a game - it shows that this film isn’t just triumphant underdogs and loving camaraderie; it’s about teamwork and hard work. That’s not to say that the film is depressing or melodramatic, but it’s much more on the side of drama than comedy.

The film goes through all the motions mentioned above, but does so in such an earnest fashion that it’s hard to roll your eyes at it. In fact, the only thing really deserving of scorn in this film is director Gavin O’Conner’s attempt to make the win against the Russians seem like something that saved American society from crumbling into CHUDs (cannibalistic humanoid undergroud dwellers). Sports are great diversions. A game can be an incredibly emotional event. But no sporting event saves a country. Sometimes it causes a riot, but rarely does it stop crime or revive the economy.

Miracle is nothing new, but who among us was looking for a sports film to make us view the world in a new way? D3 can only touch so many lives. Sports films tend to be just sure-fire good ways to spend an hour and a half of your time. And while Miracle may have more drama than The Mighty Ducks, it’s still a feel-good flick which should be seen for Russell’s performance alone. And if you haven’t seen the other Russell flicks mentioned above, get your ass to a video store lest you feel the wrath of an angry Donald Pleasence.