This movie is a near-perfect snapshot of a random, middle-of-the-week rec league hockey game. The building they play in is empty, but not cartoonishly decrepit, and the characters introduced aren't stereotypes or fit a trope. Rather, you get the feeling any one of the guys on Polly's Pies could show up at your next meet. They're funny, but not in a gag humor, setup-punchline kinda way, and when it comes to the actual hockey, the action matches real life. It's sloppy, chatty, tense, but not overdramatic or epic. Much like how Creed veered away from the unrealistic haymakers and uppercuts of Rocky, this gives the realistic speed, strategy and momentum of amateur-at-best hockey. It's just another game, and you get that sense watching the movie, but while that may sound boring to some, it really gives the movie a lot of charm. It's an easy watch, a low-stakes slice-of-life comedy that you'd come across at 2 pm on Comedy Central back in the day, and I mean that as a compliment. I recommend it!
Review of The Late Game
