TravelingbeebryantRN & Flicks_withNick

The latest movie review drop brings us Mystery, Alaska. My wife is a travel nurse, and I work from home, so we’ve been taking assignments all across the country. Our next assignment is in Anchorage, AK. If anyone has met my wife, they’ll know that she’s been wanting to go to Alaska since we started Travel nursing, so it made sense to review a movie about Alaska (even if it was all filmed in Canada). The movie came out in October 1999, and grossed only a measly 8.9 million worldwide. The movie stars Russell Crowe as John Biebe, Hank Azaria as Charles Danner, Mary McCormack as Donna Biebe, Colm Meany as Mayor Scott Pitcher, and Burt Reynolds as Judge Walter Burns.

The movie begins with showing the landscape of this small town, and how this town loves their hockey. They make it very clear that Hockey in this town, is like Football in Texas. People are born to skate in this town, and they even ice skate on the sidewalks. The main attraction of this town is the Saturday hockey game between the best players in town. They make it clear that John is a good passer, but he’s not as fast as the rest of the team. After the game is done, the mayor and other figures of the town have told John that he has been demoted to alternate, so the high schooler Stevie can play for the team.

The town just had a Sports Illustrated article written about them, and describes how the Saturday Hockey team could beat anyone else on the pond. The article is written by Charles who used to live in the town, but now lives in New York. Charles arrives at Mystery via Helicopter to tell the town that the New York Rangers are coming to Mystery for an Exhibition game.

The New York Rangers agreed to come to Alaska to play the local town. Leading up to the game we got to know the players of the team a little better. There’s an awkward sexual interaction between two high schoolers, one of the teammates has an affair with the Mayor’s wife, and another teammate has legal issues. The entire town rallies behind the death of an important figure of the town. The only drama that is given through the movie is a three way love triangle of John, Charles, and Donna.

To no surprise John is back on the team, and gets Judge Walter to coach the team. The New York Rangers show up for an outdoor showdown. The cutscenes and gameplay is not as good as the movie Miracle, but I thought it was serviceable. Before the 3rd period we can hear the stereotypical motivational speech from the captain, and I felt like Russell Crowe was prepping for his speech in Gladiator, as it came out a year later. The “last shot” of the game was another stereotypical slow motion scene to try to give tension. The game ends and the town is closer, and even two of the guys from the town get to join the Rangers, and play for their AHL team.

This movie is another typical feel good sports movie, but with some swear words to make it rated R. I felt like it was trying to play a tug of war game with itself of, should we be another sports Disney family movie? Or should we be a raunchy rated R Slapshot movie. There was some scenes that I laughed at, and even had a great cameo of Michael Myers, but I felt like they could have still accomplished a raunchy sports movie, and still be PG-13. The skating of Russell Crowe was noticeably subpar, but I felt like they did a good enough job of hiding it for the most part. I feel like this movie is one of those “yeah buts’ ‘. It’s a funny hockey movie, yeah but not as funny as Slapshot. The movie had some good hockey scenes, yeah but not as good as Miracle. I think its worth the watch, but If someone is looking for a funny feel good sports movie, I would recommend people to see The Replacements that came out a year later.

I give this movie a 2.6/5