So nice to be entertained! Please take a lesson Hollywood..

Even if you don't love sports or even if you don't like hockey, you will still enjoy Mystery, Alaska. This film which was directed by Jay Roach and starred Russell Crowe, Burt Reynolds, and Hank Azaria is not all about just playing hockey. The movie is about a small town in Alaska where tradition rules and hockey is the name of the game. Russell Crowe plays John Biebe who is not only the town sheriff he is also one of the stars of the Saturday hockey game. The town takes much pride in their Saturday hockey game so much when they want to bring in the young high school player; there is an actual vote on if they should allow him on the team. Burt Reynolds plays Judge Walter Burns who once played in the Saturday game when he was younger. He now has a son who plays in the Saturday game. The entire town revolves around this game and they take pride in their players and their small town. Hank Azaria plays Charles Danner who has moved away from Mystery because he feels the small town is holding him back and he thinks things are much better in the "big city". He decides Mystery needs to be put on the map and he arranges a hockey game with a major professional team. Where it all goes from here is very interesting and the outcome is certainly not what you would think. Mystery, Alaska is not just a movie about hockey, it is also a movie about the relationships we have with our family and our friends.

Caught this late night on TV and got interested by the presence of several well known actors in something that obviously looked like some made-for-TV soap. Checked the IMDb and it turned out to be actually a big theatrical movie, but this was the last surprise that happened to me that evening.Not sure with whom the NHL teams use to spar, but the movie makes quite a big deal of one friendly between NY Rangers and a team from a small town in Alaska. So big it's what actually the whole movie is about! Being a fan of a 1st division football club that plays multiple test-games against some 5th or 6th division amateurs every season, usually away from home and often televised, I find the whole fuss difficult to understand. But it does provide a mildly amusing atmosphere that I suppose counts for the "Comedy" tag the movie got, as there's barely anything else funny there. Certainly not the premature-ejaculation type of jokes or the played-out one-liners.Elaborathing further is not worthy of my time. The story is clichéd beyond belief, predictable and boring. The jokes are corny. The music sounds like produced by some one-click-soap-track-generator. The acting is way over the top. The whole movie is a sappy piece of cheese.Interesting only for die-hard Hollywood soap "connoisseurs" or for ones who might dig Russel Crowe sporting some strange mullet and a fur hat.

It is weird to think that Russell Crowe was part of this rather low key sports drama since most of his films have been of a higher order. I almost forgot that before he made L.A. Confidential he was relatively unknown in the U.S. and it was only when he was nominated for an Oscar for "The Insider" that his movies became big events.That aside, this is an immensely entertaining little movie and Crowe has a very sympathetic character here. His character has many things in common with characters in other sports movies like Walter Matthau in "Bad News Bears" and most of these movies have a strict formula. They usually revolve around underdogs and here we get a local hockey team who gets a chance to play against a NHL team, the New York Rangers. There are not many ways to tamper with this formula and indeed "Mystery, Alaska" does not stray from it. Instead we get very enjoyable hockey action and the usual rivalry between the better hockey player and the one who thinks he should be the star. In this case the part is filled out nicely by Ron Eldard, who is not a household name, at least not here in Denmark, but he has made a few films that stuck with me, one of them being the revenge drama "Sleepers". Here he has a much larger part and he does well as the arrogant rival to Crowe.The other supporting actors like Burt Reynolds and Hank Azaria are mostly decorative but there is no one who can play smarmy better than Azaria and Reynolds does well as a more dignified character than he has ever played before (check out his senator in "Striptease" to compare). The sole female, Lolita Davidovich, is terribly underwritten but that is typical of this kind of movie.Last there is a cameo by Mike Myers who of course struck gold with the director of this film and this is as it should be. So many directors do the same so why not here. The actual big game is not that extraordinary but there are enough good moments to make this a pleasant viewing experience.