| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 91.3

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| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 91.3 | The History Cooperative

Movie Reviews

Miracle. Dir. by Gavin O'Connor. Walt Disney Pictures, 2004. 135 mins.

The Cold War has receded so far into the past that college students will soon have no memory of it at all. The Soviet Union's swift collapse obscured how powerful it once was and how far the outcome of the Cold War was from being a foregone conclusion. In dramatizing the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team's astonishing gold medal win at Lake Placid, New York, Miracle serves as a useful reminder of the doubts about the country, the economy, and the Cold War that were prevalent in the United States at that time; it also suggests the resurgent optimism that lurked beneath the doubt. As entertainment, Miracle is a fine film: the actor Kurt Russell brings the late U.S. hockey coach Herb Brooks to life; the hockey scenes may be the most realistic ever in a Hollywood film; and Miracle maintains suspense throughout the film even though the ending is no surprise. As history, it is a useful re-creation of a sporting proxy war in the Cold War and vividly illustrates aspects of American life in early 1980.

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