Red Army

Sports and politics meet in this documentary centering on the titular powerhouse Soviet hockey team of the ‘80s, which won two Olympic gold medals and seven world championships, becoming heroes of the Soviet Union. Built around interviews with Viacheslav “Slava” Fetisov, former squad captain, and other (long retired) members of the team, filmmaker Gabe Polsky's Red Army traces the players' childhood passions up through international glory and on to a brief career in America's NHL in their later years, where long after their physical prime the men would lead the Detroit Red Wings to two Stanley Cup championships. But before leaving the U.S.S.R., these national heroes were the face of the Soviet Union in international sports competition, prisoners of their own success who were under constant political pressure to win. The rigorous training regimen, which drilled into them the distinctive playing style that confounded Western teams, kept the men away from their families 11 months out of the year. Indeed, the Red Army team players were treated like soldiers whose field of battle happened to be the ice rink. From the Cold War climate of the ‘80s up through perestroika, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the embrace of capitalism, the players remained pawns in a global PR campaign, although their odyssey concludes with a real-life happy ending. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)