'Red Penguins' Review: Gabe Polsky's docufilm on US helping Russian hockey is both funny and unbelievable
As much as one would like to believe America's soft corner for Russia is a recent development, the camaraderie goes all the way back to the '90s when the Soviet was just crashing and the country's hockey players were being scouted and cherry-picked by other nations one by one. Gabe Polsky's somewhat funny and mostly shocking feature 'Red Penguins' is a documentary that chronicles the same while also highlighting the subtle attempt America made at inducing capitalism into the veins of the far east that saw the immediate rise and eventual collapse of a dream that was supposed to reconcile the two.
It was around Christmas 1991 when the Soviet Union fell and Americans were gifted with a chance to gift the Russians their greatest gift of capitalism. Overnight, the East's most popular hockey team — the Red Army, found itself swirling under crisis as corruption reigned the dynamics. Business relations between Russia and America were propositioned with vigor and looked promising, but in reality, the water was a little murkier to wade and happened to give away who would topple whom, the way oil and water separate when mixed.
But while the whole of a hockey merger back in those days of it makes one think if this would work better in today's climate, Polsky's documentary still continues to be relevant in more than just one way. In that, the whole America rushing to sweep Russia off the floor with the glass shoe of capitalism is probably funnier because it didn't succeed in the long run.
No matter how hard visionaries — legitimate and otherwise — tried to save Russia by buying its hockey team and reestablishing the sport with their control over it, the results were devastating. Yet Polsky's narrative has a Gatsby-like appeal where rose tainted glasses offer a certain shelter of hope and optimism at a time when Russia was reinventing itself and everything seemed possible.
A sequel of sorts to his 2014 title 'Red Army', Polsky's docu-film is insightful and lighthearted — a difficult balance to achieve when narrating a real-life incident that while didn't turn heads. It does make for a good Thanksgiving dinner story, however. When the Communist rule had taken all their government support from the Red Ary, Russia's famed hockey team at the time, American knights in shining armors, including Michael J Fox indulged in helping. Out of a shocking venture, a group of people invested in a project that saw the Red Army become sort of a brother team of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
One of them was Howard Baldwin, the then owner of the Stanley Cup champion Penguins, who decided to buy a 50% stake in the Red Army team and restore it to its former glory. Together the teams became the Russian Penguins and overnight there was a cartoon logo, a mascot, and Steven Warshaw, who makes more than a few couple of appearances in the film.
Warshaw who reportedly works at Madison Square Garden now is a signature New York sales and marketing executive. From recreating the team's brand to revitalizing it amidst harrowing conditions where the team was stripped down to humiliating arrangements - Warshaw had his work cut out. The documentary chronicles his ardent efforts at gathering corporate sponsorships, stunts, prizes — literally anything to get fans back in the stands. Once they figured the brand could be worth $100 million in merchandising profits, strippers and miniature attractions weren't far away and it almost looked like the locals were ready for some newness and change, no matter how ridiculous or unworthy.
Things eventually began falling apart with first Disney withdrawing support, and soon American bookkeepers just couldn't live up to the expectation of the Russians. The Kremlin and military were just as threatening to the Americans as the people they were seeking protection from. Even the team's feared general manager Valery Gushin was reportedly able to scoop $1 million in revenue from the Penguins in just a year.
Kidnapping and murders were the last straw on the Yanks seemingly. Once that took over, what went into the stadium and came out of it didn't matter anymore. Nobody famous or delegated was killed, but that's more of a surprise than a relief. This jagged traditional period from Yeltsin to Putin doesn't necessarily come as reassuring in Polsky's retelling of history.
But the in general lighthearted air makes up for everything that fell apart within just a couple of years' time. Polsky keeps it light with contradictory statements from people who matter and allegedly fearsome General Managers looking joyous just to take off the edge in a manner that doesn't make the whole red feel like its 80-minute long. 'Red Penguins; premieres on August 4 On Demand.