Miracle
(2004/Disney Blu-ray)
Picture: B
Sound: B Extras: B Film: B
There is a myth perpetuated by some that the 1970s was
some kind of sudden period where the U.S. ceased being a superpower or the
like, when that was not true and what was happening in the post-Vietnam Era
(relabeled Carter Years by certain revisionists, forgetting the fall of Nixon
and ignoring Gerald Ford, who lost the election by saying the USSR posed no
threat to the United States in a debate) is far more complex that such severe
oversimplification would have us believe.
Gavin O’Connor’s Miracle
(2004) is an underrated film about how the two countries at the height of The
Cold War managed to battle each other at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games.
In one of the best roles and performances he will ever
have, Kurt Russell is Herb Brooks, the man picked to coach the U.S. team as it
is out of sorts and the USSR (Soviet/Russian) team is clobbering every other
team around. Though not noted too much
here, the country would even have KGB members as team members and the pressure
to be in top athletic condition was so harsh, you could go back home and never
be heard from again or something as ugly.
The country was hell bent on spreading their ugly version of communism
and the U.S. blunder in Vietnam only fired them up all the more.
The U.S. team is in bad shape and Brooks knows that the
USSR team will continue to dominate unless another team comes along to stop
them. Aside from the political
implications of their success, it is not looking like any other teams can beat
them. He slowly works on forming a team
that could win, but they’ll have to be good enough to get through preliminary
games with other country’s teams before they can think about the final series
of games with the ultimate opponent. We
get the usual guys who need to become a team story, yet this is not so bad in
this case considering what is a stake.
It is not just a win to be a good or great team.
By the time most of the film has unfolded, you know the
showdown is inevitable, but this is a true life story and Eric Guggenheim’s
screenplay does an underrated job of bringing it to life. The cast of still mostly unknown actors would
have been onto greater success if this had been the hit it deserved to be, but
the concerns post-9/11, confusion in its aftermath and a (too) slow turning of
attitudes against the second Bush Administration and their pathetic abuse of
power made the a fine film at the wrong time.
Now, the Blu-ray can bring new recognition to one of the few good sports
films made in the last 30 years.
The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is a nice
improvement over the DVD (not reviewed), though it still has some issues in
softness and detail, this is a good looking film and is one of the few that actually
looks like it takes place nit he period it occurs in. Director of Photography Dan Stoloff makes
better use of the scope frame than you get in such films. The DTS-HD Master Audio (MA) lossless 5.1 mix
is superior to the foreign Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes here and English mix on the
older DVD, though much of the film is dialogue-based. When the sound kicks in, it can make good
uses of the surrounds and Disney has wisely added a D-BOX motion bass signal
for those who can play it back. The Mark
Isham score is underrated too.
Extras include outtakes, five very enjoyable featurettes
(general Making Of, From Hockey To Hollywood: The Actors’
Journey, The Sound of Miracle,
ESPN roundtable on the film and First
Impressions with Brooks, Russell and Filmmakers) and a feature length audio
commentary by O’Connor, Stoloff and Editor John Gilroy in what is also some of
his best work to date.
- Nicholas Sheffo
