And in the middle of the fight, a hockey game broke out

Rating: 8/10 (10 August 2007)

Who wants to see Butch Cassidy smash some heads in a hockey rink?
George Roy Hill directs Paul Newman yet again (sans Robert Redford) in a violent, smutty, gritty take on... semi-professional hockey? Well, regardless of the unreality of it all, it's still quite a good movie. Newman brings his trademark skill to the role of a seasoned hockey vet determined to turn his losing team around, by any means necessary. I'm no hockey expert, so I have no idea why he hopes to do this by having his players start fights on the ice right before every game, but it works. From his initial tactic (telling a goalie a very interesting fact about his wife) to jail to the final game, it's a film that almost never skews preachy (until, of course, the obligatory final locker room pep talk scene so typical of sports movies) and culminates in a rather unsettling manner involving a hockey uniform.
The movie's strength is in its tongue-in-bleeding-cheek humor and fantastic cinematography, as well as (you guessed it) Paul Newman. It'll never be one of my favorites, but it's still something else, really.