I Believe

Rating: 9/10 (3 October 2005)

This, ladies and gentlemen, was a great movie.
Of all of the hockey films that have come out (mostly by Disney, for some reason) in recent years, this one gives you the best feel for what the greatest moment in sports history was like.
Though some liberties were taken with the storyline - there were no fights in practice, Eruzione didn't end the skate-til-you-puke session in Norway, and the pre-game speech that Kurt Russell gave was never made - this story is the ultimate good guys beat the bad guys film.
There were many things about the story of the USA team that I'd forgotten in the intervening years: how Eruzione had come close to being cut, about O'Callahan being hurt in the prelims, and even about how players used to celebrate a goal by pouring out onto the ice. (That practice was actually legislated away for the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo by the IIHF.) The fact that the O'Connors went out of their way to find hockey players and make them actors lends more credibility to the game sequences. The sticks and uniforms were basically accurate - though I don't believe the Tuuk blades were around back in 1980; I could be wrong, though.
I do know at least one person who doesn't care for the film, but that's because she's from Russia, and to her (at least) the bad guys won.
Overall, this is a film that can get a hockey fan through a long off-season - or an idiotic self-inflicted labor dispute.