9/28/99: There is no movie more cliche, than the sports movie. There's always a down on their luck team or person, who must overcome all odds to win the World Series, make it to Olympics, or just beat the rival team. There's the coach who's been in the big league and knows what it takes to win. The aging veteran who's on his way out, the up and coming rookie who's the best the team's got to offer, if he could only get control of his skills. The big guy who's the heart of the team, the pretty boy who's more concerned with chicks then the game, a few more mixed guys, guys who fill the roles that the main ones can't, be it the religious one, the one in trouble with the law, the foreigner who everyone's not sure of, etc, etc. There's always the big game at the end that is so very close, with all the plays that hardly ever happen in real sports, with it all coming down to the slow motion climax.

Mystery, Alaska has most of these. Except they don't know they're a bad team, they've been playing hockey every Saturday for more than a decade. In fact they're pretty damn good, former home town boy Hank Azaria writes an article about them in Sports Illustrated, which leads to him setting up an exhibition game with the New York Rangers. That is when they become the major underdog and a joke with the media. Russell Crowe continues his streak of being a completely different character in every movie he does, this time he's the aging veteran, also town sheriff with a wife and kids. Burt Reynolds is the coach, town judge, and hard ass, he doesn't like the idea of playing the Rangers. Ron Eldard is the pretty boy, sleeping with every woman in town, but veers a little from the cliche, hockey is more important to him. The up and coming kid is still in high school and having girl troubles, the best player is a grocery clerk, and like all movie athletes, he has a hockey goal in his backyard, that he shoots at during beautiful sunsets. That red head kid from "Critters" is the coach's son, he's got to prove worthy to dad, but he's a puck hog, Adam Beach from "Smoke Signals" is also on the team, I don't think he had more than one line, and of course there's a big guy named Tree, he's to nice and has to learn to play like a big guy.

Jay "Austin Powers" Roach directs decently. There are a lot of problems with David Kelly's script though. First it's a sports movie, but then they try to fit way to much other stuff in, and it runs a long 2 hours because of it. Sub-plots like the mayor having problems with his wife because of the hockey player who's sleeping with everyone, Crowe having similar problems, a Wal-Mart type store is trying to move into town, legal problems with the Rangers, a town favorite dying, a few of these needed to be trimmed out, most really go nowhere. It also rely's a few times on the easiest humor there is, little kids and old women saying naughty things.