RED ARMY
Sony Pictures Classics
Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: B+
Director: Gabe Polsky
Screenwriter: Gabe Polsky
Cast: Slava Fetisov, Vladimir Pozner, Viktor Tikhonov, Alexei Kasatonov, Vladimir Krutov, Vladislav Tretiak, Scotty Bowman, Anatoli Karpov, Lawrence Martin, Lada Fetisov
Screened at: Review, NYC, 1/8/15
Opens: January 23, 2015
When the modern Olympic games were established, the idea was that countries of various stripes would get together, the participants and fans getting to know one another better, and lo, everyone would be singing Kumbayah. Things turned out differently, as the Olympic games became yet another competition among the various nations, the Nazi government in 1936 using the Olympics in Munich to show their alleged mastery in sports and hence in overall worth. Even off the Olympic stages, the Soviet Union and the United States, both housing fans of hockey as well as football (soccer), used competition between them to try to demonstrate the superiority of one ideology (capitalism) over another (communism). The Soviet team would be coached to the limit and beyond, particularly by one Viktor Tikhonov, a man whose harsh techniques could probably be compared to that of the fictional Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the despotic orchestral conductor in Damien Chazell’s movie “Whiplash.” Tikhonov, who died just two months ago to the sadness of nobody on his team, had even refused to allow permission for one of his athletes to visit his dying father.
Hockey meant more to the Soviets than it did, or does, for our own country, as they belijeved a championship team equals a superior nation and government. And for the most part they succeed—in winning season after season, but surely not in proving the merits of their Communist system. In fact the only wild exception came during the 1980 Olympics here in Lake Placid as American college players delivered a humiliating loss to the best that the Soviets had to offer. Whether this had to do with Americans’ playing on their home turf, we don’t know. The upset was considered a miracle, one of the greatest in all sports history.
Like all good sports documentaries, “Red Army” is about more than hockey, and in fact director Gabe Polsky, who serves as narrator, uses archival film sparingly and, while showing up goals scored upon goal, does not try to build a dramatic narrative that would have the movie audience cheering the home team.
To Polksy, the more important idea was the narrative about friendship and perseverance, leading us into some early coaching of boys of about seven years who compete for being the best or the best of the best and thereby eligible for the Olympics and for games abroad. The principal interview subject, Slava Fetisov, who at the age of fifty-six is as charismatic and witty as he must have been during his playing days, speaks perfect English, reminiscing about the good old days while being somewhat wary about admitting the loss of both himself and thirty-three others to the National Hockey League. Here in North America, the NHL anticipated quite a struggle in getting Soviet players to defect at least for a while and play for U.S. teams like the Detroit Redwings and the New Jersey Devils, considering that they were dealing with people schooled in the ideology of socialism. However, the goodies in U.S. markets was just too overwhelming for the Soviet players to resist, though Fetisov himself would be ostracized by his friends because of his defection.
Specific players are highlighted, such as Vladimir Krutov, Sergei Makarov (the high scorer), center Igor Larionov and Alexei Kasatonov as defenseman. To repeat a cliché, you do not have to be a hockey fan or even a sports fan to enjoy this fast-moving doc, which is blessed with some instructive archival films—describing the technique that confused North American players of dealing with opponents who crisscross and dance like the stars of the Bolshoi Ballet—and several interviews with Russians speaking perfect English thanks to their shucking off the home country in favor of playing in the West.
Rated PG. 85 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – B+
Acting – B+
Technical – A-
Overall – B+
