Butler's Cinema Scene

Viacheslav Fetisov (center) and teammates bring the Stanley Cup to Moscow

“RED ARMY”  My rating: B 

76 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

You needn’t be a hockey fan or even a sports enthusiast to appreciate “Red Army,” Gabe Polsky’s documentary about the heyday of Soviet ice hockey.

It’s got plenty of hockey action, sure, but it’s also about history, politics, the Cold War, and a whole lot of other stuff.

From the 1970s until the fall of the Soviet Union in the late ’80s, a winning national hockey team — run by the Red Army — was viewed as proof to the world not only of the USSR’s athletic excellence but also of the irrefutable superiority of the Soviet system.

This doc gives a fine overview, from the days when head coach Anatoli Tarasov designed the system, studying the training programs of the Bolshoi Ballet and Soviet chess masters to create an intricate passing game in which a collective approach trumped individual ego, in which teamwork was paramount.

Indeed, watching footage of Tarasov’s squad in action is like witnessing some high speed modern dance of astounding grace and sublime coordination.

Tarasov was beloved of his players, a fat, grandfatherly figure to pre-teen boys who joined the team after national tryouts and thereafter pretty much lived and breathed hockey.

Unfortunately, Tarasov ran afoul of the leadership and was replaced by Viktor Tikhonov, a KGB operative who took Tarasov’s design and ran with it, in the process turning the Red Army team into a sort of gulag.

Tikhonov was despised by his players for his cruelty and inhuman training regimen (especially after the Red Army lost to America in the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” at the Lake Placid Olympics). He refused to let a team member visit his dying father — one player said that if he ever required a heart transplant, he wanted Tikhonov’s “because it’s never been used.”

Polsky’s film is largely the story of Viacheslay Fetisov, the highest scoring defensive player ever, a man who could skate as fast backwards as forwards.  He became the youngest player ever on the national team and went on to a career in America’s NHL.

In talking head interviews that punctuate the film, Fetisov recalls discussions about throwing games in the hope that losing would cost the hated Tikhonov his job. Later, in the last gasps of communism, Fetisov passed on the opportunity to join the NHL because his government wanted to take 90 percent of his paycheck. He held out until he was allowed to keep what he earned.

Once a pro in the USA, Fetisov floundered in a mode of play that eschewed subtlety and grace for body blocks and flying elbows. It was only after he joined five of his former teammates on the Detroit Red Wings squad that these Red Army veterans became the dominant force in the NHL.

For a couple of seasons the cream of the Soviet hockey program were once again sharing the ice…and stunning the world.

| Robert W. Butler