Miracle

In 1980, coach Herb Brooks (played here by a confident Kurt Russell) took a handpicked hockey squad of college kids into the Olympics to challenge the supremacy of the incumbent Soviet Union veterans. The young Americans and their brash coach soon became symbols of hope and pride in a country battered by gas shortages, high interest rates and a past decade of turmoil and high-profile scandal. Gavin O’Connor directs this David-and-Goliath-on-ice story with a steady hand, as the most famous underdog team in the world of sports embraces Brooks’ tough-love recipe for success and goes for the gold at Lake Placid. This inspirational, rough and tumble, profanity-free testament to ingenuity also touches on the conflicts between work ethics and domestic responsibility. It is aimed at family audiences and is dedicated to Brooks, who died in a car accident just before completion of the principal photography.