My American friends may take offense about the title I chose for this review, but they have to face the fact: the American investors (including the mighty Disney empire, would could only plead plausible deniability) were taken out to the cleaners by a bunch of bankrupt Russian mobsters.
Back in the early 1990s, moments after the fall of the Berlin wall and the demise of the USSR, the US-based Penguins NHL franchise bought a 50% stake in what they believed was the ownership of the most successful hockey team outside North America: the Soviet Army Hockey team (CSKA), which was the backbone of the very successful USSR National team.
On paper, that was a brilliant, creative idea. For that kind of money, if the Pittsburgh Penguins could get a couple of Stanley Cup winning players, it was worth it. That's what they thought. And that side of the story is well covered in the movie.
What they did not see, is that they were not entering a playing field they knew the rules of. This is evident in the final minutes of the documentary (even though no one admits that they had no clue as to what awaited them).
I felt that the documentary did a good job of documenting the facts from both sides of the cultural divide. Where it lacks is in any form of critical investigation is about how naive the Penguins were to make this investment in the first place. In fine, this a magnificent reminder about cultural ignorance. And this is where the effort falls somewhat short of the mark, failing to draw the lessons learned from this very remarkable story.
Still very watchable, now that you know the limitations of the piece.
Review of Red Penguins
