Red Army (2015)

Touches You

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Documentaries are always a dangerous weapon in the hands of a skillfull director and this fact hadn't missed the Canadian attempt to make a story behind the rise and fall of the last Soviet hockey team before the collapse of the Union. Fetisov, Karpov, Kasatonov, Krutov. The mighty Four that terrorised the world on ice for almost a decade isn't just a classic sport story and the makers of "Red Army" wanted us to show the dark secret behind their success, the back side of communism and the controversy that followed with the departure of the Mighty Four in NHL. This was done in a poor, maniristic and propaganda kind of way, often highlighted by the persistently strict responses by Slava Fetisov himself. Instead of educating ourselves, "Red Army" tried to remind us how we were lucky not living in communism and it miserably failed to do so, making it a poor documentary.

During the Cold War the Soviet Union took sport very seriously and ice hockey was a particular favourite. This film sets out to tell the story of the most successful five men produced by the Soviet system and they were all Red Army soldiers. It has interviews with the players as they are now including Fetisov who was one of the most driven of the men. It also uses archive footage from the era and uses the history of the time to contextualise what the men were going through. Some of the best bits were the Russians in action – they played with such grace and pose that it is a joy to watch – and I am not a sports fan in the least.The politics on and off the ice are covered too and there are more than a few tough memories brought to the surface. It is mainly in English but there is some Russian that is mostly translated. This is just a fascinating documentary about a little piece of history that I was totally unaware of – highly recommended indeed.

Sometimes sports can seem like they have a bloated sense of self-importance but it can resonate in the grand scheme of geopolitics. The Cold War was indeed an era of tension and it manifested itself most publicly when the Soviet Union brought its teams to North America. It wasn't just teams representing countries, but they were representing ways of life - America, the capitalist way of life, and the Soviet Union, the communist way of life. And ostensibly, those lifestyles determine who has the better players, at least that's what they wanted the teams to think. When you hear that a country has beaten Canada at hockey, you know that means business. However, the documentary Red Army shows how the Soviet Union team members, who are all world class athletes, become disenchanted with their leadership and are recruited over to American leagues.As expected, the attitude of the Russians today in the interviews are amusing and intimidating. Director Gabe Polsky feeds off the candid moments he captures, even if that results in the participants condescending him. With very deliberate motions with the camera, he capitalises on moments that other directors would have considered an outtake. There's a sense of humour and a sense of danger constantly bubbling, and Polsky's collection of archive footage always perfectly illustrates the portrait that the anecdotes form. It shows a skill in hockey that I've never seen before and Polsky makes it quite poetic at times. However sometimes its drama is too boisterous, but it's only real crux is that with such a big team it's hard for it to stay focused and follow all its characters at once. While it's most likely drenched in bias coming from an American, but pushing politics aside, it's the individual lives that matter.8/10

Left the theater very disappointed with the movie for the exact reasons as NWIWCHAR. The interviews were embarrassingly amateurish and the movie was terribly incomplete, choppy and disjointed. In addition, there was little to nothing regarding the Summit Series in 72. Also, Herb Brook's comment was taken completely out of context as were Wayne Gretzky's. Where are the interviews with Mogilny and Bure and Federov? The Soviets, while tremendous players, in their own right, where not superior to the best Canadian players. The Summit Series in 1972 took a Soviet team that had played together for years and matched them against NHL All Stars in their off season, before training camp had started and players that had never played together on the same team. It wasn't until exhibition games in Sweden that the Canadian players (who were minus Bobby Orr, Bobby Hull and Gerry Cheevers) began to play somewhat cohesively as a team. They won three of the four games in Moscow and yes, Bobby Clarke's slash was despicable.