Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you enjoyed the pace and substance of the score as you heard it in the film. Avoid it... if you are frustrated by Mark Isham's lack of orchestral depth in situations that require enhanced drive and emotion from the full ensemble. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Miracle: (Mark Isham) "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" With these words in 1980, viewers of the Olympics in Lake Placid were treated to the event that Sports Illustrated magazine deemed the single greatest sporting event of the 20th Century. With the United States seemingly on the decline in world power, suffering from scandals at home and a hostage crisis in Iran, the U.S.S.R. seemed on the surge with its invasion of Afghanistan and continued control over the Eastern Bloc. The Soviets had dominated Olympic hockey in the 1960's and 1970's, winning four consecutive gold medals leading up to the 1980 games in America. Under the determined coaching of Herb Brooks, a collection of American mutts averaging 21 years of age trained for and won the gold in 1980 (there's not much suspense in the film...). The punctuation of that year's tournament was a spectacular win over the Soviets that was seen, politically, as the turning point of the Cold War. Director Gavin O'Connor, still a newcomer in the industry, took the story of first time screenwriter Eric Guggenheim and made a play-by-play documentary of the story. Even the game itself included Al Michaels' and Ken Dryden's original commentary played over original televised footage, and original speeches of President Carter's could be heard over other segments. With Kurt Russell convincing in his portrayal of Brooks, the film was considered a success by both critics and audiences alike --the ultimate feel-good story based on a real event, with the good guys beating the bad guys with world domination at stake-- and yet, the film suffered from a sluggish response by mass audiences and was not overly successful at the box office. O'Connor wanted a unique and personal approach to his film and, subsequently, the score. In composer Mark Isham, O'Conner found "a score that is truly potent, arresting and multi-layered, going to a profoundly deep level." Response to Isham's music has seemed equal to the merits of the film, despite a main theme with arguably awkward chord progressions. There remains one overarching aspect of Mark Isham's film scoring that often restrains his scores from greatness, however. When O-Conner mentions "multi-layered" as an attribute of Isham's score for Miracle, it's difficult to understand his meaning, because this score (as well as many of Isham's others) seems two-dimensional and mono-thematic in its composition and recording. Isham's concurrent Twisted score suffers from a similar lack of depth; whereas Twisted was obviously a hideous project all around, it's surprising to hear more of Isham's understated style and lack of powerful emotion in much of Miracle. If anything, sports dramas bring out the most ambitious of film scores from composers, and in the heightened training and game sequences, Isham begins to show drive, determination, and flavor in his chopping strings that is absent from the rest of the work. This film would have seemed to be an excellent opportunity to spur the same feel-good depth heard in Isham's spectacular effort for Fly Away Home, and yet, Miracle falls flat before it can really get started. If you want to speak about this phenomenon on a technical level, one could argue that the simplistic sound of Isham's music here is due to a complete lack of counterpoint, variation of rhythm, or interesting orchestration. The snare drum softly tapping as a representative of patriotism is badly underplayed, and the sense of weight necessary in the American victory simply can't be heard on the shoulders of one trumpet player. Had a bank of trumpets, a rattle of electronics, or, better yet, the distinct crack of a hockey stick on ice been used to punctuate rhythms or carry themes, Miracle could have contained the emphasis and excitement that Isham's score lacks. There is no musical representation of the Soviets as well. To his credit, Isham does finally unleash the full ensemble of 100 players in the finale of the score, with brass on levels that we don't often hear from the composer, but Miracle takes a long time building up to that moment. By the time that finale arrives, a listener could very well wonder what all the fuss regarding the 1980 Olympics was all about. It's a sufficient score, but not a noteworthy one; it simply lacks true drive and enthusiasm. An album without proper track breaks, without a single picture from the film, and with three songs unrelated to the score cause the entire package to be insufficient.
Score as Heard on Album: ** Overall: *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 56:14
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