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Movie Review: Goalie

Mike Tyrkus

For hockey legend Terry Sawchuk, playing goal in the National Hockey League was more of a calling or destiny than a vocation, or so the new biopic, aptly named Goalie, would have you believe. Indeed, it seems that from his humble beginnings in rural Winnipeg, to winning the Stanley Cup four times – three times with the Detroit Red Wings and once with the Toronto Maple Leafs – Sawchuk was constantly plagued by a troubled past as well as the numerous injuries sustained throughout his twenty-year career, during which he played for four of the Original Six teams, until dying after a drunken fight in 1970.

In fact, the film begins with a scene depicting Sawchuk’s autopsy after the aforementioned fight. The examiner notes all of the damage that has befallen Sawchuk’s body throughout his career. It’s scene that should set the tone for the film to come. Something that should compel the audience to ask, how did this man end up on the slab? But the rest of the film isn’t too terribly interested in delving into the deep existential answers to these questions more than it is laying out the basics of Sawchuk’s life and letting you draw your own conclusions.

Steve Byers, Matt Gordon, Éric Bruneau, Mark O’Brien in “Goalie.” Photo by Jason Tan.

At the heart of the story is Mark O’Brien as Sawchuk. He does a remarkable portraying perhaps one of the greatest goaltenders to ever put on a pair of skates and make him a tragic everyman hero.

There’s a raw emotionality to O’Brien’s performance, whether it comes in his uncomfortable interactions with his teammates or his increasingly troubled relationship with his wife (played by the O’Brien’s real-life wife Georgina Reilly). This raw emotion is the thing that sets Goalie apart from other films of this ilk as it plays out almost exactly as you would expect. Still, O’Brien manages to move the film a bit past center ice on occasion.

The film is directed by Adriana Maggs in an atmospheric manner that is reminiscent of something like John Sayles’ Eight Men Out (1988). The script, which Maggs also co-wrote with her sister Jane, is partially based on a book of poetry about Sawchuk written by their father. The devotion to the subject that the whole family apparently feels is obvious in the film, but it’s a shame that it doesn’t coalesce as well as it should. There’s a sad, tragic story here that would have made for a powerful dramatic ode to one of the greatest goalies to ever play the game. Instead, Goalie is a solid, entertaining film that makes one wonder what could have been.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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