Miracle: Movie Review

Miracle dir. Gavin O'Connor USA; 2004

I'm reviewing movies now, bitch
Before you get the wrong idea about me, I only saw this because I really didn't have shit else to do that night other than drink and I needed something to do for a couple of hours before I started to drink (it was a weekend and I didn't wake up until the afternoon).

I went to the theater (AMC Creve Coeur 12 aka "East Olive") around 10 not really knowing what was showing and figuring I would just catch whatever, but hoping I might be able to catch Return of the King, which I still haven't seen. Of course I was too late to catch that (if they started that shit at 10:30, it wouldn't get out until... um, real fucking late) and there really wasn't shit else showing. The only movie there I was even a little bit interested in seeing was Barbershop 2 and of course it was sold out.

So I basically ended up standing there in the lobby looking at that the little screen they have with all their movies on it way up in the air, trying to decide between this and whatever that Owen Wilson movie is that's playing for what must have been, I don't know, 5 minutes or so. Finally I just said fuck it and chose Miracle. I figured at the very least it would be as good as the Mighty Ducks, which I've been known to check out on basic cable every now and again while that other movie... I mean, it's Owen Wilson. Not even Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan, just plain Owen Wilson.

And I'll even admit that I had already "had a few" at that point, so my actually thought process wasn't nearly as elaborate as that. I basically just looked up, saw a sports movie and reached for my wallet. Because the thing about sports movies is, how bad can they really be? I don't know if this is a guy thing or what, but it would seem to me that even the sorriest of sports are pretty much watchable. The Sandlot, anyone? Bueller?

But then there's the fact that this is a Kurt Russell movie. I'll readily admit to having not even seen any of the shit he's been in since that brief halcyon period of his in the late '80s/early '90s with the exception of Vanilla Sky (and that doesn't really count), but does anybody really like Kurt Russell? Has anybody ever sat through one of his movies, stood up at the end and was like "Man, Kurt Russell was pretty good in that?"

Because he wasn't that bad in this one. Like I said, I don't really claim to know what his deal is; maybe it was one of those Dennis Quaid, "learned how to act at age 50" type deals. Did his wife leave him or some shit? She's a little bit long in the tooth to really leave him for anybody, unless it was some young gigolo type (maybe she'll Google this shit and give me a call).

If I had to guess though, I'd say this was more of "role he was born to play" type situation. Like if he wasn't related to whoever it was he was related to who got him into the movies in the first place, he would've been some tight pants wearing, whistle 'round his neck high school hockey coach/math teacher. Mm hmm, that's what it is.

As far as the movie itself goes, it's not that bad. If you've seen any of these sports movies before, you pretty much know the story: a rag-tag buncha young crackas, an old angry coach who's always blowing a whistle and having a "Nick Nolte moment" (ok, he actually has one of his assistants blowing the whistle, but what do you care?). In the end there's a big game and guess what, our team wins.

And in the end, that dumb fucking Aerosmith song "Dream On" comes on, they announce that the guy this movie's about died during filming, the dumb cracka girl you're sitting next to goes "Oh, that's sad" and then you go home and have another drink.