Mystery, Alaska

Today, I'm going to talk about an ice hockey movie. Not the Mighty Ducks, the other ice hockey movie. You know, the movie written by David E. Kelly who is well know for his works in Chicago Hope, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Boston Legal and more.

The movie is "Mystery, Alaska", released 8 years ago in 1999. Yeah the movie was made in the last century. Yeah I'm an old fart, grow up.

Actually I need to make a correction. Mystery, Alaska is not really an ice hockey movie. In fact, I'm not even sure if it is really a movie at all. You see, the thing about any show written by David E. Kelly is that it is a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. Mystery, Alaska is shot like a movie, is as long as a movie but what movie has a main cast of about 20 actors, opens up a dozen plot lines and doesn't end most of them?

The modern equivalent to Mystery, Alaska would be Friday Night Lights, the movie. As you may know, Friday Night Lights the movie sort of became the pilot episode and basis of Friday Night Lights, the television series.

Like Friday Night Lights, the movie revolves around a small Alaskan town of Mystery. The town lives and breaths ice hockey, ritualized by their weekly "Saturday game". In fact, the town believes that on their hockey pond, they cannot be beaten. The town becomes involved in a publicity stunt for the New York Rangers when their hometown team was featured in Sports Illustrated. This ultimately lead to a match between the underdog team from Mystery, Alaska and the professional New York Rangers. Sounds like a hockey movie doesn't it? Well, no because the Mystery team lost.

So what exactly is Mystery, Alaska the movie? It is a movie about good, earnest small town folks, their lives and their situation. If you like a good character driven movie, this movie's got it.