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Critics Consensus: Fun and fascinating, Red Army delivers absorbing documentary drama for hockey fans and sports novices alike.
Critic Consensus: Fun and fascinating, Red Army delivers absorbing documentary drama for hockey fans and sports novices alike.
All Critics (97) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (91) | Rotten (6)
A fascinating and touching tale.
Fascinating, funny, heroic, moving and may even make hockey fans out of nonbelievers.
It's a mark of Polsky's ambition and canniness that he braids hockey not just with geopolitics but also with personal history and human drama.
Polsky keeps things lively, both visually and with his editing. But the sometimes-lighthearted approach never undermines the serious business at hand.
On the surface it's the story of one particular hockey player, but it reflects so much more.
It's a story of global consequences and historic proportions, and of astounding athleticism and synchronicity - and filmmaker Polsky ices it.
What makes "Red Army" so interesting is how it also works as a statement on what it was like from the Soviet perspective during the Cold War era.
The story loses some of its grip after Glasnost and the eventual move of many of the top Russian players to the big money ranks of the NHL, but Fetisov is a fascinating, complex character, a real Russian soul.
Red Army is about more than just hockey. Filmmaker Gabe Polsky is the American son of Russian immigrants. And without belaboring it, he transforms a sports saga into a novelistic metaphor for the promise and failure of the whole Soviet system.
It's topical journalism for its own sake, a narrative waiting for someone to report it again...
Red Army is a fascinating window into Russian politics, and while it has its dramatic moments it's just as often funny.
By focusing less on his characters and more on a supposed dark side of Russian hockey, Polsky's film is less documentary than it is didacticism.
A surprisingly emotional trip through Soviet hockey history from the late 70s to the fall of the Berlin Wall with the traditionally unemotional stars of the Soviet team. Their stories are fascinating and the documentarians have a great eye and sense of topics to be raised.
Super Reviewer
One for anyone interested in ice hockey and/or the cold war.
For those interested in Soviet era hockey, this is a well deserving documentary telling the story from the perspective of the Soviet players. Although it lacks in any serious challenge or criticism, it is still quite informative and enjoyable.
Soviet Player Viacheslav Fetisov or Slava, as he is known, is front and center in this documentary. His transformation from national hero to political enemy is the dramatic arc of this tale. He's a cantankerous old man and director Gabe Polsky doesn't hide this fact. Right from the start, Slava keeps his interviewer waiting while he fiddles with his cell phone, even flipping him off (and the audience) when asked a question. It's a defiant behavior that pops up occasionally throughout their conversation. A former KGB agent trying to speak about politics is constantly interrupted by his young granddaughter playing nearby. It's these unexpected asides that make the account a bit odd at times. Mostly the parallels between sports and politics are highlighted. The rise and fall of the Red Army team with that of the Soviet Union forming the underlying background for everything that happens. Their success was proof "that the Soviet system was the best system". Fetisov's career is profiled with various ups and downs. Through it all he remains a very patriotic fellow despite remaining embittered toward his past coach. Perhaps the "bad old days" of the brutal regimen under which he trained weren't really so bad in his eyes after all. You'll understand when you see how this ends. fastfilmreviews.com
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