Red Army

Gabe Polsky’s compelling film about the world-beating Soviet ice hockey team that dominated the sport from 1954 to 1991 is a swift and incisive examination of one of the greatest teams in the history of professional sports and the political environment that created it.

Conceived as part of the Soviet national sports programme used to extol the superiority of the Soviet way of life, the team was constructed as an extension of the communist philosophy of collectivism. Players were encouraged to repress individuality and trained together in isolation for most of the year. This led to unparalleled success in the sport, but the incestuous relationship between politics and the game quickly became suffocating.

Weaving insightful interviews with archival footage of the team in its heyday, Polsky cleverly moves the focus from the team’s undeniable brilliance to the harrowing effect operating under such an oppressive regime had on the players. His film reminds us that, despite a team’s success, the game is only as good as the people who play it. [Michael Jaconelli]