Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Blistering performances.

Just an awful movie. it's very long and drawn out with a poor climax. really one of the stupidest movies i have ever seen. there's no need to get into details as to why, but it's just very vapid, there's not much to it. they must've gone through several cases of fake blood, was so ridiculous. glad i didn't see it when i was a kid and everyone in school was talking about it. sometimes we romanticize the past, but if this was they type of humor people had a very simple sense of humor. paul newman was 51 at the time and playing an active hockey player. his character was all over the map, i was very unimpressed with him. looking at this i'd say he was a very overrated actor.

Like "Bull Durham," the sport takes second fiddle to a bunch of intrigue. It's about aging players, greedy owners, manipulation, on and on. Paul Newman decides he has to take action to make sure his team manages to draw. In the small city where they play, there is a mill. The people who work at the mill are the fans. The mill is going to close, which will render the place a ghost town. This moves into an anything-for-a-laugh hockey movie with some totally unforgettable characters. When the Carlson brothers show up and goon hockey starts, we are amazed at the way the whole game becomes nearly surreal. Don't take this seriously.

The Charlestown Chiefs is a hopeless losing hockey team in fifth place. The team has to do ridiculous events to make extra cash. Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) is a player/coach with a rag tag team with the latest being the goonish Hanson brothers. Their best player Ned Braden (Michael Ontkean) has a jealous wife (Lindsay Crouse) who hates the small town. With the town's mill closing, the team has to close at the end of the season. Reggie Dunlop decides to pump up the team and attendance by planting a story of the team moving to Florida and starts playing goon hockey.This is an inappropriate movie and it's all the more funnier because of it. It is possibly the funniest hockey movie of all times. Director George Roy Hill rejoins Paul Newman after the success of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. It is more fun and more hilarious than either one. However you have to prepare for the language, the homophobia, and the goon hockey. It's certainly not a pretty movie.

A minor league hockey team tries to salvage its losing season while dealing with the possibility of being sold. It is not clear what this film is meant to be. It's advertised as a comedy, but there's hardly anything funny here. There are endless scenes of home and road games that do little to propel the narrative. Newman is the player-coach, although he's too old to be playing and is not shown doing any coaching. The characters are undeveloped and uninteresting. This is inexplicably regarded as one of the best sports films. Director Hill is reunited with Newman, but the magic of "Butch Cassidy" and "The Sting" is missing here; perhaps if Robert Redford played Newman's teammate...