‘The Russian Five’ is a sports film to savor

The Los Angeles Times ^ | May 2019 | Kenneth Turan

[CondoleezzaProtege]

One of the most dramatic of sports stories gets the expert film it deserves in “The Russian Five,” a documentary that is moving in ways you won’t see coming.

The sport is professional ice hockey, specifically the saga of the Detroit Red Wings, who in the 1990s changed both their professional trajectory and the way the game is played in the National Hockey League by boldly adding Russian players to the mix.

The intensely human situations revealed by director Joshua Riehl will captivate you even if you don’t know a puck from a ping-pong ball.

The key to “Russian Five’s” success is Riehl’s ability to get almost all of the story’s key participants in front of the camera for extensive interviews...including the actor Jeff Daniels, who turns out to be a die-hard Red Wings enthusiast and an inspired choice to give voice to the thoughts of the average fans.

...When “Russian Five” picks up the story in 1982, it had been decades since those glory days. The nickname “Dead Wings” had been given to the team as much in sadness as in anger.

It was Devellano, despite a lifetime of propaganda about the evil Soviets, who got the idea of first drafting great players from behind the Iron Curtain and then getting them to defect.

These wild and crazy cloak-and-dagger operations, involved everything from suitcases literally full of cash to bribing Russian doctors to manufacture illness reports.

The first trio of defectors — Sergei Federov, Slava Kozlov and the intimidating Vladimir Konsantinov, later to be known as the Vladinator — helped the team, but weren’t enough.

That’s when the Wings hired the legendary NHL coach Scotty Bowman, who oversaw the acquisition of two more Russians, the wily defender Slava Fetisov and the on-the-ice mastermind Igor Larionov.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Saw it on a whim as it sounded fun, and it was, but as the reviewer pointed out, it was also quite heart-wrenching. Not a dry eye in the theater at certain points.

How the skill of the players involved and the coaching insights of Bowman squared that particular circle and led to success in Detroit is what this film is all about, and the way “Russian Five” intercuts dazzling game footage with interviews makes it a treat to experience.

But what marks the truly memorable sports stories is that what happens outside the arena is as important as what happens inside. That unlooked-for combination of the heartening and heartbreak pushes “The Russian Five” to the very top.

[BenLurkin]

Not to be confused with the Keating Five

[fuzzylogic]

Thanks for posting!

Those were GREAT years for Red Wings fans. The speed and skill of Federov, the brilliance of Larionov, the punishment of Konstantinov...

[dfwgator]

Best hockey documentary I ever saw was about the “Broad Street Bullies”, I’ll have to check this out.

[Intolerant in NJ]

My favorite of the Russian Five was Rimsky-Korsakov (The Three Wonders (Tsar Saltan), although Cui, Borodin, Balakirev and Mussorgsky weren't bad either.....

[Former Proud Canadian]

The Wings of the Soviet.

[glorgau]

Very limited release.