ViewGuide

Created Aug 12, 2009 09:41PM PST • Edited Aug 10, 2017 11:21PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Ain’t never seen Slap Shot, but it’s hard to imagine a better pure hockey movie than this. For that matter, sports movies of any sort rarely get this good. Complete with a star studded cast, plenty of laughs, and a climactic game that manages to avoid cliche, it’s a mystery that this movie is so little known. Plus, given its strong female characters, it should appeal to does as well as bucks.

   That said, the movie seems stuck in a warp between TV and the big screen, perhaps because Ally McBeal and Boston Legal creator David Kelley wrote and produced it. (Of course, that means wifey Michelle Pfeiffer might have been on set. Beautiful.)

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Russell Crowe never gives a bad performance, and he doesn’t disappoint here. An all-time great star, he finally lets loose one of his patented growling speeches during the second intermission of the climatic game. Short but welcome, it reminds us of his vocal power.

   The rest of the large cast proves worthy of being on screen with him, including:

   • Mary McCormack – more a TV star with In Plain Sight and The West Wing – makes a strong, attractive wife for Crowe’s character.
   • Burt Reynolds delivers a typically tart performance as the town judge and overzealous hockey dad.
   • Colm Meany – known mostly to American audiences as Chief Miles O’Brien from Star Trek: The Next Generation – ably plays the cuckolded town Mayor.
   • Lolita Davidovich (what a great name) gives his unfaithful wife depth and legitimacy.
   • Hank Azaria is a natural as the town’s ambitious least-favorite-son.
   • Mike Myers – Canadian down to his maple leaves – easily impersonates Hockey Night in Canada legend Don Cherry.

   Several celebrity cameos spice up the movie. Most are hockey players, but a certain rock-and-roll legend makes for a nifty frozen-fish-out-water interlude.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Well rounded and endearing, the film knowingly ribs small town society and the obsession that northerners have for hockey, yet doesn’t condescend to them, making for an appealing mix.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Austin Powers and Meet the Fockers director Jay Roach clearly knows how to put an effective comedy on screen. What’s surprising is how beautifully he handles the sports angle. Two breathtaking scenes make the point: his film opens with a lone skater slaloming along a twisting ribbon of ice amid an endless snowscape; later the full team slaloms down a steep hill as they pour out of their lodge-like locker room.

12. Play Great 4.0

    Son of a hockey coach, David Kelley’s affection for both hockey and small towns gets well channeled into his script.

    Famous for his wacky take on reality in shows like Picket Fences and the aforementioned Ally McBeal, his script here is more like one of his somewhat grounded series, say LA Law. Call this Alaska Hockey then.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.4

    A little lighthearted fornication, though more mentioned than shown, the alternate poster in the WikChip notwithstanding. Plus a few good hockey hits.

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Gentle 1.3

19. Rudeness Polite 1.4

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    “It looks Russian” observes an Alaskan as a sleek helicopter unexpectedly lands in town. This throwaway line from a movie made well before Sarah Palin became Governor suggests that Alaskans really are conscious of being next door to Russia, as absurd as that may seem to many Lower 48 sophisticates.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.5

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0