One of the best sports movies of the early 2000s was “Miracle,” Gavin Smith’s rousing re-creation of the “Miracle on Ice,” when the U.S. hockey team beat the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics, clearing the way for an eventual American gold medal.
With “Red Army,” documentary filmmaker Gabe Polsky gives viewers a portrait of the opposing team that is just as spirited, enthralling and ultimately inspiring. In this swift, smart, often very funny film, Polsky takes an unprecedented look at the legendary Soviet-era hockey program and its life after glasnost, exposing an athletic system that became a crucial symbol of Communist history and politics, but also discipline, grace and brooding, melancholy soul.
All of those qualities abound in Slava Fetisov, the storied Soviet who serves as the documentary’s superbly charismatic protagonist and Polsky’s occasionally irascible foil and goad. Their sometimes testy relationship is established early in the film, when the soft-spoken filmmaker is seen trying to interview the still-imposing former athlete, who is far more interested in his phone. Looking imperiously over his glasses, Fetisov finally deigns to acknowledge the director’s presence, a dynamic that will continue to propel “Red Army” through a story that is almost unbelievably dramatic but — thanks to Fetisov’s deadpan delivery and Polsky’s willingness to play the bumbling naif — also caustically amusing.
Born in 1958, Fetisov was a natural hockey player who as a teenager was recruited to the U.S.S.R.’s national team, known as the “Red Army.” Joining other gifted players, he came under the tutelage of coach Anatoli Tarasov, who put them through rigorous training exercises, but also closely studied the subtler aspects of ballet and chess.
Through the 1970s, Tarasov’s players became virtually unbeatable, a strong, beautifully coordinated unit whose teamwork, at the height of the Cold War, became a powerful symbol of the power of the collective.
The golden age came to an end in 1977, when Tarasov was replaced by dictatorial former KGB agent Viktor Tikhonov, who forced the players to train 11 months out of the year and housed them in prisonlike barracks. Told mostly through Fetisov’s personal and professional journey — and with some well-chosen footage comparing their trials under Tikhonov to the plight of trained bears — “Red Army” deftly traces how he and his fellow players became pawns in a high-stakes political game that, as the fall of the Soviet Union loomed, became increasingly paranoid and repressive.
Hockey fans who know how it all ended will nonetheless be transfixed by “Red Army,” which has been handsomely filmed and edited with slap-shot verve. Even viewers who don’t care a whit about sports will find themselves surprisingly invested in Fetisov’s remarkable story, which touches on timeless themes of nationalism, pride, loyalty and personal expression.
The “Miracle on Ice” might have been sold as a clash of civilizations, but “Red Army” provides a valuable new lens on the event, one that takes into account the private struggles and triumphs of extraordinarily gifted athletes who happened to intersect with some of the most electrifying political events of the 20th century. What’s more, Polsky winds up being as canny a storyteller as his subject — whom he gratifyingly and hilariously prevents from having the last word.
