When it comes to the subject of community; David E. Kelley--the prolific writer-producer behind television's The Practice and Ally McBeal--falls somewhere on a continuum between directors Howard Hawks and Robert Benton. While Hawks's professional characters are bound by a knowledge of how to do what they do even if they don't know why; Benton's people; professional or not; have long ago substituted their own eccentric reasons for that elusive why. Thus we get the kind of in-house; oddball rituals sandwiched between passages of actual work on Ally; and the affectionately entangled personal and professional ties between small-town folks in Kelley's earlier TV series Picket Fences.

Kelley's script for Mystery; Alaska (co-authored by Sean O'Byrne) takes that level of eccentricity to a geographical and spiritual extreme. The film revives the hackneyed Rocky formula; setting a lopsided hockey match within a remote; self-contained hamlet where the members of a tiny population all have to wear multiple hats and still keep neighborly ties intact. The story concerns the town's chief source of identity and pride: so-called "Saturday games;" in which local men divide into teams and play pond hockey for the locals. When a prodigal son (Hank Azaria) of Mystery shows up with a television network offer to bring the New York Rangers in for a televised match against the homegrown team; the town fathers agree. Coaching falls to the town sheriff; John Biebe (Russell Crowe); an admirable man and a longtime player recently bumped from the team. John; however; doesn't want the job: everyone knows the real coach in those parts is Judge Burns (Burt Reynolds); but he wants no part of it either. All of that changes after a sad tragedy forces everyone to reevaluate their positions and pull together in order to beat the Rangers.

Following the success of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery; Jay Roach proves to be an able director of drama; swift action; and low-key; character-driven comedy not unlike that in Benton's Nobody's Fool. He has to deal with some pure corn at the end; but Roach pulls it off and guides the actors to and through far better moments. --Tom Keogh