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In the early 1940s, when the struggling National Hockey League appeared to be nearing the end of the line, a French Canadian factory worker from Montreal managed to revive the sport.
The Rocket (or, in its native French, simply known as Maurice Richard) follows the early career of hockey legend Maurice “Rocket” Richard, starting with his days as a hard-working iron worker who rushed off to play in junior league games at night. It shows Richard (Roy Dupuis) as he falls in love with his teammate’s sister, Lucille (Julie LeBreton), and faces rejection from her father because he’s sure that Richard will never amount to anything. Mostly, though, it follows the early years of his hockey career—a career filled with tremendous ups and heartbreaking downs.
After just barely getting picked up by the Canadiens, Richard starts strong, only to end up on the bench early on with a broken leg. As the fans start to lose interest in the new player, Richard fights to stay on the team. He eventually returns even stronger than before, going on to break records and lead his team to numerous Stanley Cup wins.
Dupuis’s Richard is a dark and moody, soft-spoken but determined—and, most of all, a strong player. While Dupuis gives a solid performance, however, his character doesn’t have the depth that I expected. That could be due, in part, to the writing—because while the film touches on a number of issues, it frequently skims over them. For instance, it repeatedly shows Lucille Richard’s fear and concern that other players were purposely going after Richard and trying to hurt him—while the league never did anything to protect him. Lucille brings it up so much, in fact, that she seems to have just one (rather nagging) note throughout the movie. But Richard never really reacts. He just shrugs it off, and the scene ends. Though the film does handle some of the issues well, for the most part, it hints at a lot of issues without really tackling them in-depth.
While it isn’t quite as powerful as it could have been, though, The Rocket is an interesting—and even inspirational—movie about an important figure in hockey history. It may not be a big-budget production, but it still does a great job of capturing the time and the mood while telling a rather captivating story about a fascinating character.
Since the DVD offers both the original French version and a dubbed English version, there’s nothing for the subtitle-phobic viewer to fear. The only thing you won’t understand are the titles, which, for some reason, are still in French (so it helps if you watch it with a guy who took nine years of French in school, as I did).
Despite its flaws, however, The Rocket provides a fascinating look at hockey in the 40s and 50s. And that makes it worth checking out—especially if you’re a hockey fan.
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