Review

Red Army

In the mid-1980s there was a Sting song that rhetorically asked if "the Russians love their children too." Had it been asked in any context other than a pop song, the question might be dismissed as naive and lacking in sophistication. What was different about Russians was not so much their capacity for and susceptibility to human emotions but a political philosophy that favored collective cooperation over individual enterprise. No wonder they were so good at sports.

Gabe Polsky's surprisingly moving Red Army is a briskly paced documentary about hockey and politics -- about patriotism and teammates -- that fills in the other side of a story that most Americans, even those who aren't particularly interested in sports, are at least a little familiar. The story of the U.S. Olympic hockey team's victory over the Russian Red Army in the 1980 games at Lake Placid, N.Y. -- the so-called "Miracle on Ice" -- is often cited as one of the great upsets in sports history.

Red Army

89 Cast: Documentary, with Viacheslav “Slava” Fetisov, Vladimir Pozner, Alexei Kasatonov, Vladislav Tretiak, Scotty Bowman, Anatoli Karpov, Ken Kurtis, Lawrence Martin

Director: Gabe Polsky

Rating: PG, for thematic material and language

Running time: 76 minutes

In English and Russian with English subtitles

More than that, the U.S. victory is often cited as a moral parable in which a team comprised of virtuous young American amateurs took down a team of robotic (if not bionic) Soviet veterans who were supported by a state system designed to cultivate athletic success at any cost. The Russian team was, according to Ronald Reagan, "a microcosm of their society." When the U.S. team prevailed, its coach Herb Brooks (played by Kurt Russell in the 2004 Disney film recounting Miracle) told then-president Jimmy Carter the victory "proves our way to live is the proper way."

Yet if Polsky's film ultimately humanizes the Russian players, its opening moments seem to support the view of the players as dead-eyed droids. As Polsky questions him from behind the camera, former Soviet team captain Viacheslav "Slava" Fetisov -- an imposing wide-shouldered presence at 56 -- brusquely brushes him off as he tends "to business" on his smartphone. As Polsky's questions hang unaddressed in the air for an uncomfortably long time, a list of Fetisov's honors and accomplishments are superimposed upon the screen. Not only did he win an Olympic gold medal and (much later) a Stanley Cup, there's an asteroid named in his honor. He is a man used to being waited on. Fetisov, who over the course of the film will emerge as a complicated and engaging character, is the prime voice in this unpacking of Russian hockey history.

He talks about how, though his early life was hard, he was happy because he played hockey. He says it took his parents two years to save the 250 or so rubles they spent on his hockey gear; he talks about how as a 9-year-old he waited on line for seven or eight hours in order to try out for the national hockey program. (He never even got to skate that year; the coaches simply patted him on the head and told him to try again the next year.) But Fetisov had an undeniable talent, and was inducted into the junior hockey program the next year.

By the time he was 16, he was in the national Red Army hockey club, a squad that was practically unbeatable from 1954 until 1991. (The Miracle on Ice and the similar, less heralded Forgotten Miracle victory by the U.S. team at the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley, Calif., were exceptions.) As a young veteran on the 1980 team, Fetisov saw how the unexpected loss resulted in punitive measures; some players were dismissed, and four other key players -- high-scoring right-winger Sergei Makarov, left-winger Vladimir "the Tank" Krutov, center Igor Larionov and defenseman Alexei Kasatonov -- joined Fetisov to make up the team's core with Vladislav Tretiak, widely considered the game's best goalkeeper. Eventually the team's inspirational and highly creative coach, Anatoli Tarasov, was replaced by a former KGB agent named Viktor Tikhonov.

While Tarasov trained his athletes using elements borrowed from diverse strains of Russian culture, consulting with chess masters and the Bolshoi Ballet, Tikhonov ruled with an iron fist. His players were segregated from society and their families for 11 months out of the year, living in barracks and training to exhaustion. They might have been allowed to go home one weekend a month. Fetisov recalls how when one player petitioned Tikhonov to be allowed to visit his dying father, the coach denied the request, saying he had to get ready for the next game. Fetisov and his teammates continued to dominate under Tikhonov's reign, but he insists they never respected or trusted the humorless coach.

When they played abroad they were chaperoned by the KGB, who collected their passports and carefully watched them, apparently with good reason. Until Fetisov and his teammates traveled to Canada, they'd never imagined fruits and vegetables could be available in the wintertime. Polsky makes great use of archival footage, and he augments Fetisov's account with interviews from notables such as longtime National Hockey League coach Scotty Bowman, Fetisov's teammates and sportswriter Lawrence Martin.

As a sports movie, Red Army is an interesting examination about how the fall of the Soviet Union changed the face of professional sports. But it's also an absorbing and incisive study of the bonds of nation and teams, of individual dreams sublimated for a greater good. Fetisov was a star, in hockey and in life, but there's something in his nature that denies it. "We were the same," he says, speaking of his teammates. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

MovieStyle on 04/03/2015

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