I'm very excited to see this film. Hockey is my favorite sport to watch, especially the Russian players. My favorite hockey player will always be Sergei Fedorov of the Detroit Red Wings. Simply the best!


Fetisov: A Cold War soldier reflects.


"Red Army"

Directed by Gabe Polsky
(PG)


A new look at the bad guys of the 1980 Olympics

Hockey legend Slava Fetisov has to be “one of the most likable, soulful sports heroes you could ever hope to meet,” said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. In this “artful, often downright droll” documentary about the Soviet squad that famously fell to the “Miracle on Ice” team in the 1980 Olympics, Fetisov, the Soviet captain, helps overturn everything you thought you knew about America’s rivals. The Soviet team truly played for the love of the game, but when a grimmer regime followed and Fetisov quit, he was shunned and even assaulted before finally making his way to America and the NHL. A film with “a genial and even joking manner,” Red Army “usually keeps the mood light,” said Stuart Klawans in The Nation. Director Gabe Polsky also “knows enough to send you out with a smile,” giving his star a final triumph. But “there are implications to this tale that go beyond the sport”—about the pitfalls of tribal competition and the true nature of Soviet life. If anything, at only 76 minutes, Red Army is “too brisk,” said Andrew Lapin in NPR.org.