"Red Army" a Moving Portrait

In the Cold War, hockey was a great equalizer, pitting the Soviets against the world in fair competition. For a long time, the Soviets conquered on that battlefield. In his new documentary, “Red Army,” director Gabe Polsky pulls back the iron curtain to reveal the secrets of the Soviet machine that generated not only some of the greatest hockey players of all time but also men whose passion for the sport became muddled by politics and corruption. “Red Army” succeeds as an insightful history lesson on the symbolic and ideological conflict embodied by the hockey games that occurred during this time. What separates this political documentary from others is its deeply passionate portrayal of the men behind the Soviet success.

Born to Soviet immigrants himself, Polsky expresses a deep reverence for the Russian Five and provides an unusually sympathetic look at the Soviet system from whence they came. Polsky tastefully splices together different pieces of broadcast footage of these men in action to showcase the elegant, graceful, and systematic destruction they wrought on their opponents. It is not necessary to understand hockey to see that they were incredibly skillful. Interviews with the players reveal scarred and exhausted human beings who were disillusioned by the Soviet Union. The audience is treated to the players’ stories of happiness, camaraderie, loss, betrayal, and tragedy. The film’s most affecting moments are simple shots of players being brought to tears. In particular, Vladimir Krutov’s interviews voicing his inability to adjust to a Western lifestyle are tragic. Missing his home and struggling with his weight, Krutov stresses the difficulty of transitioning to life in America for a man so used to strict control and order. His interview is all the more poignant in light of the fact that he died mere months after the film’s completion.

When the film is not providing a psychological examination of the Soviet players, it is a fun and sharp piece of historical entertainment. Skillful editing seamlessly juggles broadcast clips and interviews into an involving movie. The players’ personalities are particularly engrossing. Viacheslav Fetisov is the most vocal of the players in the film and brings an irreverent, cocky, and tongue-in-cheek personality that is manifest in the film’s biting, satirical tone. The audience’s first introduction to Fetisov begins with him flipping off the camera.

However, while the film is effective, it suffers from its simple and lopsided portrayal of the events that took place: It is entrenched in a primarily Soviet perspective of the conflict. While the film presents the exodus of Russian hockey players to other nations as a good thing, it never provides a non-Russian perspective. It is shocking not to see more opinions from NHL players, or from team coaches who contended with the Russians themselves. The result is an unchallenged message that avoids interesting complications to its bluntly sympathetic portrayal of these players’ defections to America. It is this minor shortcoming that nudges the film closer to the propaganda of the system it so overtly criticizes.

“Red Army” plays out as a history lesson on the one hand and a personal story on the other. The balance between these two elements is difficult to achieve, yet the film succeeds in both informing and entertaining. This is a documentary worthy of viewing, regardless of whether one is a hockey lover or not. Even if its rhetoric is not as sophisticated as it could have been, “Red Army” is a passionate, driven, and human look into a group of men.