First, in the interests of full disclosure: My father, an Anglo-Canadian, was born and grew up in Montreal and was a devoted fan of the Canadiens hockey team. In the early Fifties, we moved to Toronto. Did he become a Maple Leafs fan? Never! Every time the Canadiens played in Toronto he was glued to the tube, watching "Hockey Night in Canada" on our à la mode black and white console TV. He was forever on the edge of his seat yelling,  "Vive le Rocket!" and "Les Canadiens sont là!"  He loved those French phrases. The latter one means, roughly. "The Canadiens are it!" So, too, is this fine picture about the greatest sports hero in Québec's history and arguably the greatest hockey player ever (we can trade opinions about Gretsky over a beer later).  

Maurice "The Rocket" Richard (1921-2000) grew up in the northern part of Montreal at a time when French Canadians were often looked down upon by English Canadians. The province of Quebec at that time was under the thumb of premier Maurice Duplessis, who ruled with a hand so authoritarian that access to education for the general population was limited. It was a byword at the time that the only Quebecois with an education were priests and lawyers. As a teenager, Richard worked as a machinist. When the war broke out, he tried to enlist. 

Richard had played hockey from the time he was a kid, He had broken his ankle in junior hockey and an improper mend kept him out of the military. At 21, in 1942, he won a contract with the Montreal Canadiens. He promptly broke his ankle again in the pros. This nearly ruined his career. But he healed and came roaring back to be the first person ever to score a goal in every game of a hockey season: 50 goals in 50 games (1944-1945).  

In the following years, the feats of "The Rocket" accumulated and he became a legend. He scored goals while spotting 25 pounds to burly defensemen who were hanging all over him. He scored the winning goal in the seventh game of the 1952 Stanley Cup semifinals while covered in blood from an injury earlier in the game. No wonder that when Maurice grabbed the puck and flew down the ice, he was not just a great hockey player or a great sports hero, he was the soul of Québec at a time when French-Canadians, oppressed from within and without, needed a flame like "The Rocket" to ignite their hearts.

Charles Biname's biopic, Maurice Richard: The Rocket gets in all this and more, including his political travails in a National Hockey League that was owned and operated by bigoted Anglo Canadians. A significant part of the later part of the narrative is devoted to the famous "Richard Riots" of 1955, when Montrealers took to the streets after their hero was suspended for the remainder of the season when he coldconked a referee. It was generally thought that Richard would quit after the 1955 season. He came back in 1956 as captain of the team to win five straight Stanley Cup championships, a record that has never been equalled. He retired in 1960. 

Roy Dupius plays The Rocket with absolute authority, He does his own skating and stickhandling (no tricks), and he even looks like Richard. This is the same actor who, in the harrowing crime drama Being At HomeWith Claude, plays a gay street hustler. It needs to be said: Mr. Dupuis is a great film actor. He is also perfectly bilingual. Hollywood and Paris need to be making more use of him. The entire cast of Maurice Richard also deserves mention, but the Anglo-Canadian actor Stephen McHattie stands out along with Mr. Dupuis. Mr. McHattie, an actor with a knife for a face, plays Dick Irvin, the Canadiens long-time coach who taunted his Québecois players with racial insults—until he finally came to understand their plight and value their courage. 

The other outstanding performance in this film is the production design (by Michel Proulx). The recreation of 1940s Montreal (and the following decade)—the cars, the costumes (by Francesca Chamberland), the lighting, the set decoration—is perfect. So, too, are the hockey scenes, which were reviewed by The Rocket himself before he died. To get this proper look and feel cost some money.  

Because Canada is a small country, its films, like those of Iran or Korea or Australia, tend to be "small"; they are often precise character studies of close groups in specific locales and without special effects. These are the kinds of movies made on a budget that wouldn't pay the craft services for Spiderman 3. This is all to the good, of course, since we need films like these to counterbalance Hollywood bloat and formula. Maurice Richard: The Rocket is an exception to the Canadian rule. It cost $8,000,000 to make, which is both a large amount of money for a Canadian film and also demonstrates what excellent results can be accomplished within that budget. It was money well spent. Maurice Richard: The Rocket was nominated in 13 categories for the 27th Genie Awards in 2007; it won nine of the 22 Genies awarded. The film has apparently been picked up for distribution in the States by Palm Pictures. It's out on DVD, but see it on a big screen if you can.